While this volume lacks the action sequences and high drama of its predecessors, Hearn continues to explore issues of fate,...
The third installment of Hearn's four-part series about mythical medieval Japan offers a relatively less violent hiatus while characters recover from—or succumb to—the emotional, spiritual, and political upheavals they survived in the previous episodes (Dragon Child, 2016, etc.) before they confront their destinies in the final volume.
Yoshi, the hidden emperor, is now a teenager ensconced with a band of acrobats and in love with Kai, who is carrying his child. He both recognizes and fears his destined role as emperor. Yoshi’s supporter and the series' hero, Shika, who went from orphaned noble’s son to outlaw to avenging warrior with supernatural powers in the previous volumes, is now hiding in the Darkwood mourning the death of his great love, the Autumn Princess, and unable to remove the magical deer mask created for him by a sorcerer. Without Shika’s guidance, the superhuman brothers of the Spider Tribe, born to the sorceress Lady Tora, have grown into semihuman adults whose lack of feelings makes them frighteningly amoral and powerful. The Miboshi clan’s Lord Aritomo, who supports the false emperor Daigen, mourns his closest friend Takaakira, who died after announcing that Yoshi should be emperor. Takaakira had loved and protected Hina, daughter of Lord Aritomo’s enemy, the Kuromori lord. Having escaped death herself, Hina’s journey becomes the heart of this novel as she interacts with most of the novel’s other characters either directly or indirectly. Still a child, Hina comes under the protection of Lady Fuji, who runs the pleasure boats and took in Yoshi and Kai in the previous novel. Lady Fuji hides Hina in a temple for women where the Abbess turns out to be Shika’s mother. Though Hina, who had a childhood crush on Shika, does not meet him in this novel, there are hints that their relationship may become pivotal.
While this volume lacks the action sequences and high drama of its predecessors, Hearn continues to explore issues of fate, love, moral failure, and moral redemption through characters both archetypal and heartbreakingly believable.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-374-53633-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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BOOK REVIEW
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With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
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
A promising page-turner from a poised newcomer who’s well worth keeping tabs on.
This doorstopper epic fantasy and trilogy opener was originally self-published in 2014.
The details that give this ingeniously plotted yarn its backbone emerge gradually—and are not always entirely clear. Twenty years ago, a war swept away and annihilated the tyrannical Augurs when their formidable magic inexplicably faltered. Their servants, the Gifted, whose lesser magic derives from Essence (Islington has an irritating habit of capitalizing things), were forcibly constrained to obey the Four Tenets, meaning they can no longer use their magic to cause harm even in self-defense. At a school-cum-sanctuary-cum-prison for the Gifted, three 16-year-old friends, Davian, Wirr, and Asha, face their final tests. Though an excellent student, Davian cannot use Essence and faces a cruel exile. He decides to abscond. Wirr believes Davian’s an Augur whose higher-order magic blocks his ability to channel Essence, and he insists on joining him. Ilseth Tenvar, a seemingly sympathetic Elder, gives Davian a mysterious magic box to guide his progress. The next morning Asha wakes to a nightmare of her own. On the road Davian encounters the strange, scarred Gifted Taeris Sarr, who three years ago saved his life (Davian doesn’t remember the incident) and supposedly was executed for his pains. In the far north an ancient evil stirs, while in a related development, Caeden wakes in a forest to find himself covered in blood and with no memory of anything. So, in time-honored fashion, nobody is what they seem to be, everybody has a secret agenda, and the key players all lack pivotal memories. And while there’s nothing much new here, Islington’s natural storytelling ability provides incessant plot twists and maintains a relentless pace. The characters have well-rounded personalities and don’t make decisions or errors merely to advance the plot, even if they all sound and act the same youngish age.
A promising page-turner from a poised newcomer who’s well worth keeping tabs on.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27409-8
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
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