by Laurel Anne Hill ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2021
An atmospheric magical-realist tale with a compellingly ominous interpretation of the gold rush.
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A young woman embarks on a quest to hold off Yankee gold miners in this alternate-history YA novel.
When three strangers ride into the rancho of Don Ygnacio Delgado in Alta California, they bring alarming news. It’s June 1846, and Yankees—called Bear Flaggers for their makeshift, grizzly-bear standard—have captured Gen. Mariano Vallejo and claimed the whole territory for the United States. The raiders also killed the brother of Tomás Tomás, the older rider, as well as three Delgado family friends. Tomás, who is Costanoan, has another shock for 16-year-old Catalina Delgado; she is his granddaughter. Her real mother, now dead, was named Rain Falling, and Catalina is a mestiza, not pure gente de razón. This newfound status could lower her prospects of marriage to her beloved Ángelo Ortega, a match already in danger from a prophecy that a Spirit Man will come and take her away. In a world where Catalina is locked into her bedroom every night to protect her reputation, Ángelo’s father will insist on a girl of unblemished chastity. Now, Tomás relates Rain Falling’s childhood dream, in which a prophetic spiritual figure called Coyote said that her daughter would be stolen, to be returned when she hides a gold strike. This will be heralded by three signs—a false bear flag, a murdered brother, and a man on a black Andalusian stallion riding a thunder cloud. On his black horse, Spirit Man does come to Catalina. He shows her gold nuggets in a stream and a hiding place, Spirit Waker Cave, although the inevitable “plague of two-legged flies” that will transform Alta California can only be postponed. Catalina, too, as well as her hopes and dreams, will be forever changed by her challenging new destiny.
In her second YA novel that’s set in a magical-realist 19th-century California, Hill gives readers a wonderfully imaginative, unsettling view of events leading up to the 1849 gold rush. Many narratives emphasize the excitement of this time and California’s newfound wealth, population growth, and influence, but this book foreshadows the disasters—starvation, slaughter, dispossession—inflicted on Indigenous people. It’s a theme that could become heavy-handed, but Catalina’s passionate teenage energy gives propulsion to the dramatic plot. She’s caught up in a whirlwind of romantic hopes; her fear of the mysterious, ambiguous Spirit Man and his nameless horse; the weightiness of her task; and spiritual questioning. Although multiple prophecies and spiritual forces push Catalina on her transformative journey, the urgency doesn’t seem warranted given that her efforts will have very limited effect and duration. It’s hinted that her alteration will help connect loved ones, but that seems unrelated to the gold question. Still, typical teenager-with-a-quest stories end in shiny triumph (even if losses occur along the way), and Hill does well to take the story beyond that trope in unexpected directions that show the depth of Catalina’s sacrifice and love.
An atmospheric magical-realist tale with a compellingly ominous interpretation of the gold rush.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-949534-20-7
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Sand Hill Review Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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by Leigh Bardugo ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 9, 2024
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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by Leigh Bardugo ; illustrated by Dani Pendergast
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