A delightfully entertaining story of how one woman’s effort to destroy helps her learn how to save.
A magical tale of fantasy, desire and revenge in medieval times.
In this magnificent debut, LaRose presents the young and beautiful Trilla, a maiden trapped between two desires—her dream to be a part of the Sisterhood of Zerr and serve the Goddess as a chaste priestess and her burning desire to be with Harnn, a handsome blacksmith whose amber skin and toned body fill her thoughts. Trilla is determined to hold firm to her promise of chastity, but Harnn proves to be too tempting; she finds herself running to find him, symbolically removing the ceremonial ribbons that represent her loyalty to the Goddess as if they are binding chains holding her back. At last, swept away by passion and longing, Trilla betrays her vows to the Goddess, and Harnn, as enchanted by Trilla as she is by him, proposes marriage. Despite her indiscretion, Trilla holds firm to her dreams and eventually chooses the ambition that has taken root over her blossoming love for Harnn; she abandons him. But the lonely life of the Sisterhood isn’t for Trilla: Eager for Harnn’s loving embrace, she fakes her death to escape. Trilla hurries to her village, brimming with plans for life in a faraway land, but she’s devastated to learn that Harnn, in her absence, has fallen for another. Trilla plots to destroy her rival, but in her attempt to do so, Trilla transforms and develops her own magical powers of insight and psychic ability. Soon, Trilla must turn to the Sisterhood for help as she begins to understand the evil that lurks in her land. Simply told in a straightforward manner, Trilla’s story is an easy read that romance readers will devour. Her struggle for identity and love is a timeless theme that resonates, and her foolish mistakes help create a likable, relatable heroine.
A delightfully entertaining story of how one woman’s effort to destroy helps her learn how to save.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-1480801776
Page Count: 398
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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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