A fast, tense gift for readers wanting to return to Nil.
Following Nil (2014), Rives falls for a new girl who holds the key to salvation from the alternate-dimension island.
Skye arrives on Nil fully informed of the rules: Traveling portals called gates, some inbound and others outbound, appear every day at noon; teens thus deposited on Nil have one year to catch an outbound gate, and if they don’t, they die. She knows this because her uncle escaped Nil and wrote a journal that has prompted her father’s obsessive search for the island—and his training of Skye. They search for it among the Pacific Islands, where Skye secretly follows a local boy toward islands Skye and her father have been explicitly warned away from, naturally finding a gate. Meanwhile, Nil City leader Rives struggles to keep his people alive. The romance—new girl brings hope and hunky boy leads—is outwardly similar to Nil, but it’s better integrated with the story, which is also more smoothly paced than its predecessor. They discover that the islanders use Nil in coming-of-age rituals. Even though the xenophobic islanders keep Nil’s stationary outbound portals a cultural secret from kids stolen from other parts of the globe (many of whom die), Skye’s sensitively apologetic for even asking. While Skye might be too close to perfect for some readers, she’s a good match for Rives, and they work together to a conclusion that leaves readers with the barest of loose ends.
A fast, tense gift for readers wanting to return to Nil. (Science fiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: May 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-293-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
A page-turner of a fantasy-horror debut from a promising new voice.
Something’s rotten in the province of Sussex.
Twelve families rule over the Smoke, a U.K.-inspired nation, where the citizens battle to maintain control against an encroaching fog that brings death and destruction in the form of monstrous Phantoms. When Silas Darling, Merrick’s father and Sussex’s Manor Lord, dies unexpectedly, Merrick must abandon her New London social season and return to her ancestral home, Norland House. Surrounded by her older sister, Essie (who’s set to inherit the title Merrick desires for herself), and cousins (who are concerned mostly with propriety), she struggles to find answers. When Sussex and the family’s seat are threatened by mysterious border breaches and attacks, Merrick enters into a tenuous alliance with sentry Killian Brandon to unravel a Gordian knot of family secrets. The measured pacing, combined with Merrick’s emotional arc, together create magnificent tension. The worldbuilding skews gothic, thanks to the creepy manor house and mist-infected landscapes that are befitting of a Brontë sisters novel—albeit with the addition of possessed corpses that consume human flesh. The gender politics of this world allow women to inherit titles and fight Phantoms, yet they have little agency to act on their own behalf without entering into advantageous, heteronormative marriages, an aspect of the fantasy world that readers may find confusing. Primary characters read white.
A page-turner of a fantasy-horror debut from a promising new voice. (guide to manors and ruling families) (Fantasy. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593572375
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful.
January 1945: as Russians advance through East Prussia, four teens’ lives converge in hopes of escape.
Returning to the successful formula of her highly lauded debut, Between Shades of Gray (2011), Sepetys combines research (described in extensive backmatter) with well-crafted fiction to bring to life another little-known story: the sinking (from Soviet torpedoes) of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff. Told in four alternating voices—Lithuanian nurse Joana, Polish Emilia, Prussian forger Florian, and German soldier Alfred—with often contemporary cadences, this stints on neither history nor fiction. The three sympathetic refugees and their motley companions (especially an orphaned boy and an elderly shoemaker) make it clear that while the Gustloff was a German ship full of German civilians and soldiers during World War II, its sinking was still a tragedy. Only Alfred, stationed on the Gustloff, lacks sympathy; almost a caricature, he is self-delusional, unlikable, a Hitler worshiper. As a vehicle for exposition, however, and a reminder of Germany’s role in the war, he serves an invaluable purpose that almost makes up for the mustache-twirling quality of his petty villainy. The inevitability of the ending (including the loss of several characters) doesn’t change its poignancy, and the short chapters and slowly revealed back stories for each character guarantee the pages keep turning.
Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful. (author’s note, research and sources, maps) (Historical fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-16030-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
PROFILES
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
