by L.A. Banks ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2004
Strong improvement for Banks, who found herself attacked by Internet fans of Laurel K. Hamilton, Anita Blake, and Buffy’s...
Second and shorter trade paperback entry in the Afro Vampire Huntress rock ’n’ roll trilogy rip-off of Blade, Buffy, and Lestat, following Minion (2003).
At 20, destiny-driven Damali Richards, a New Orleans orphan and now a Spoken Word artiste, nears full awakening of her superpowers as an adult vampire huntress as she runs about carrying rhino bullets fresh-packed with hallowed earth and holy water grenades that blast like C-4—which has got master vampire Fallon Nuit and the Vampire High Council in a major tizzy. Unhappily for Damali, her sometime lover Carlos Rivera got turned and is dead, man, or rather undead, and time’s gotta come when Damali or one of her devamper Warriors of Light stakes him out so that he gets real cool, real dead. It’s war, with Fallon Nuit’s demonic Minion of rogue hybrid-vampires against Damali, who’s protected by seven guardians, including band members who double on drums and crossbow, or computer-crossbow-wooden stake, or as Aikido instructor/choreographer/bassist. As Carlos is led through a many-layered hell of demons, each layer as richly defined as Dante’s Inferno, his bloodthirst rises, and, back on earth, he nearly attacks his mother, his grandmother, and their young helper Juanita before he’s interrupted. Meanwhile, the Council demands that Carlos bring in Damali in three days, when she ovulates, so their seed will ripen in her before her birthday. Technically, Carlos, who died in prayer, is not dead, only transformed, and thus untrustworthy for this job. Will he sign the eternal contract and deposit his soul with the Council? Will Nuit’s plan for armies of hybrid demons to turn hundreds of thousands of Damali’s concertgoers on five continents be successful? Will vamps get viral immunity to sunlight and become daywalkers?
Strong improvement for Banks, who found herself attacked by Internet fans of Laurel K. Hamilton, Anita Blake, and Buffy’s Joss Whedon, vampiricists who make no reflections in mirrors.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-31683-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2003
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by Leigh Bardugo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2019
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
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New York Times Bestseller
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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by Leigh Bardugo ; illustrated by Dani Pendergast
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by Kevin Hearne ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 4, 2020
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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