Shifting alliances, mercurial villains, and multiple retellings of ancient tales make the details hard to follow but...
In the third book of the Cainsville series (Visions, 2014, etc.), Olivia Taylor-Jones is at the apex of a love triangle while magic forces tug at her from both sides.
With her birth parents in prison for multiple murders, Liv has escaped the spotlight of the national media only to become a local celebrity in Cainsville, where the community elders seem to have more at stake in Liv’s love life than they’re letting on. Picking up from where they left off in Book 2, Liv and biker Ricky Gallagher are still heating up the pages between action scenes, while she and attorney Gabriel Walsh are still working together at Gabriel’s law firm and holding each other at arm’s length. What these two men have to do with Liv’s fairy heritage—half Tylwyth Teg, half Cwn Annwn—is up for interpretation. Haunted by disturbing visions of Welsh fairies from Cainsville’s past, Liv must separate truth from lore to clear her parents’ names and end the cycle of tragedy. Gabriel’s psychic aunt, Rose, pores over ancient texts with scholarly precision to interpret the omens, but the books in this fictional world are as unreliable as the fairies. Liv’s visions, in contrast, are heart-pounding and gruesome: in the recesses of her mind, the clues roll in like fog. Unlikely allies Ricky and Gabriel team up to help the woman they love fight against dangers both real and imagined. Meanwhile, Liv’s deranged ex-fiance, James, fears that she’s been brainwashed—and he’ll do anything to bring her back to the mortal world.
Shifting alliances, mercurial villains, and multiple retellings of ancient tales make the details hard to follow but rewarding to catch.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-95306-7
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Final installment—each entry independently intelligible—of Hobb's stunning fantasy trilogy (Royal Assassin, 1996; Assassin's Apprentice, 1995) about the beleaguered Six Duchies and their Farseer kings. Months ago, King Verity vanished into the far mountains in search of the semi-mythical Elderlings, whose help he must have in order to defeat the rampaging Red Ship Raiders, leaving his murderous, venal, and insanely ambitious brother, Prince Regal, to dispose of Verity's last few loyalists at his leisure—including narrator, spy, and assassin FitzChivalry. Poor Fitz, unable to contact his beloved Molly (she thinks he's dead) and daughter (by Molly) for fear of exposing them to Regal's attentions, uses his magic Skill to locate Verity and receives an imperious summons: ``COME TO ME!'' So, abandoning his plan to assassinate Regal, Fitz enters the mountains with a small band of helpers. Eventually, having evaded Regal's minions, Fitz comes upon Verity Skill-carving a huge dragon out of black rock; nearby stand other lifelike dragon-sculptures that, to Fitz's animal-magic Wit, seem somehow alive. Are these eerie sculptures what remain of the Elderlings? Yet, for all his Skill, Verity cannot bring the dragons to life; and soon Regal will arrive with his armies and his Skilled coterie. An enthralling conclusion to this superb trilogy, displaying an exceptional combination of originality, magic, adventure, character, and drama.
Pub Date: March 15, 1997
ISBN: 0-553-10640-6
Page Count: 668
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1997
An exciting fantasy/romance debut: action-packed, emotionally charged, and skillfully plotted.
When Cat, a mysterious circus soothsayer, is captured by Griffin, a wily warlord who recently won his kingdom’s crown, she's disarmed by his strength, honor, and integrity, but she's afraid that tying her heart to his can only bring weakness and complications.
Cat has spent years in a circus, hiding from her past and avoiding the destiny that’s been ordained by an Oracle, until Griffin discovers her ability to know when people are lying and forces her to return with him to his kingdom. At first he's determined to use her as a weapon to help his family, which has recently taken the throne, but soon Griffin realizes that beneath Cat’s prickly personality lies a loyal heart and a font of magic unlike anything he’s ever seen—possibly unlike anything anyone has ever seen. Sexual and emotional tension crackles as they and their small band of warriors fight to get back to Griffin's kingdom, with Cat pledging her grudging allegiance after they're attacked by such a variety of enemies that it's hard to tell who’s after Griffin and who’s after Cat. Griffin is tired of magical royalty and nobility who look down their noses at their nonmagical subjects and ruin their kingdoms through selfish greed, and he's intrigued by his soothsayer, who clearly has noble breeding but has turned her back on her own past. She isn’t giving any secrets away, but as clues trickle out, it becomes clear that someone out there wants to take her alive and that the power Griffin has seen may be nothing compared to what she’s capable of, yet fighting her feelings—for Griffin, his team, his family—becomes almost as hard as hiding her magic. Debut author Bouchet tells a swashbuckling tale through Cat’s irreverent, diffident, yet still somehow buoyant first-person point of view; this is an exquisite high-fantasy romance with masterful worldbuilding based on Greek mythology.
An exciting fantasy/romance debut: action-packed, emotionally charged, and skillfully plotted.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4926-2601-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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