An imaginative and entertaining addition to the Argeneau world.
The popular Argeneau romance series expands its horizons with a mysterious island with fantastic beasts and a diabolical doctor determined to change life as we know it and find immortality no matter the cost.
Domitian Argenis has been waiting millennia to find his mate and over a decade to claim her, so once he discovers she’s been lured to Venezuela under questionable circumstances, nothing will stop him from following her there, neither the potential danger nor the fact that a handful of immortals have disappeared recently, all tied to the man who's offered Domitian a job. Moments after boarding the helicopter that will take him to meet Dr. Dressler, he's drugged and he wakes in a tropical paradise with his fated mate, Sarita, a Canadian police officer who's also been drugged and left on the jungle island in a luxury home, lured by the story that her grandmother has been injured in a fall. Alone but surrounded by cameras, the two succumb to their supernatural attraction but also plan to get off the island and search for clues to help them. Escaping leads to even more danger, though, as they find Dr. Dressler’s nearby island compound and a veritable menagerie of creatures with manipulated human and animal DNA. Having mastered this dubious scientific breakthrough, Dressler is now determined to crack the Argeneau brand of immortality and is conducting inhumane experiments on captive immortals to that end. Sarita and Domitian find unexpected allies who help them connect with the Argeneau clan and outside help, and through their adventures, Sarita just may begin to believe in love and fate. Bestseller Sands’ newest title is a rip-roaring story that opens up a new thread—and enemy—to her paranormal world and will delight her fans; for the casual observer, though, there may be a few too many coincidences to make the story completely satisfying.
An imaginative and entertaining addition to the Argeneau world.Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-246884-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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