There’s nothing revolutionary here, but Argeneau fans will enjoy the fast-paced and competent romance.
A strange series of events brings a human woman to the attention of a centuries-old vampire.
Sophie Ferguson is tired of gambling on love. When she was a child, her parents died in a house fire and she was adopted by the family of a friend. As an adult, Sophie had not one but two fiances die in freak accidents before the weddings could take place. When a blind date goes terribly wrong, she’s saved by a pair of handsome, mysterious men who are actually vampires. One of them, Tyberius Verde, asks her to be his plus-one at a large, exclusive wedding where he's the best man, and Sophie can’t help but say yes. Sophie is shuffled off to a table while Tybo takes care of wedding duties, and she's seated next to Alasdair MacKenzie. All the vampires at the wedding immediately realize that Alasdair and Sophie are fated to be life-mates, part of Sands’ vampire mythology. Sophie’s not sure why she has more chemistry with Alasdair than Tybo, while Alasdair is worried about the particulars of being mated to a human. The wedding functions as plot, with Alasdair’s twin brother and four Scottish uncles comically volunteering to help Alasdair woo Sophie, and also as fan service, with beloved couples from the previous 35 books in the Argeneau series making appearances. Sophie and Alasdair allow themselves to be pushed together, but when Alasdair survives several incidents—poisoning and a hit-and-run accident—that would have killed a mortal man, the couple realizes that Sophie isn’t suffering from bad luck, but is instead the victim of a stalker. The romance between Sophie and Alasdair feels a bit perfunctory, as everything falls neatly into place with only external forces threatening to keep them apart.
There’s nothing revolutionary here, but Argeneau fans will enjoy the fast-paced and competent romance.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780063292109
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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