A satisfying ending hindered by a difficult narrative journey.
Love and deceit rule in a shadowy kingdom populated by lesbian vampires who live on the fringes of society.
Once a year, vampiric Queen Isabel and her lover, Ankit, meet at the Masquerade Ball. Court life isn’t to Ankit’s liking, so their annual trysts are the only time they can share their love for one another. As Lycka’s debut opens, the two lovers have picked up a third: an innocent, human woman named Arrow. Drained and left for dead, she manages to ingest just enough vampire blood to survive, but she wakes transformed into one of the undead. Neither Isabel nor Ankit stick around to help her, so Arrow has to figure out her new life by herself. Being undead has an awesome side effect, though: Weaving exquisite tapestries can now be done in weeks rather than months. Ankit has been watching her, and when the two reconnect, Arrow is exposed not only to court life but to Ankit’s love. Upon hearing this, Isabel orders Arrow’s death, since the queen isn’t quite ready to move past her longtime lover. Isabel dispatches her knight, Gavino, who has love problems of his own: He’s just been bested in an annual tournament by Chastine, the woman he loves; he turned her into a vampire, but once the deed is done, he realizes he can’t stand living with her. He looks forward to taking out his frustrations by killing Arrow, but the new vampire somehow bests the experienced warrior. The ending brings together all the plotlines with signs of Lycka’s impressive writing chops, but the story is ultimately weighed down by typos and too many details—especially those featuring Isabel—that are told rather than shown. Other threads, such as Isabel’s black-market organ dealing, aren’t developed enough, and readers don’t get to see the moment when Isabel realizes she has ordered the death of the same woman who produces the tapestries she adores.
A satisfying ending hindered by a difficult narrative journey.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2012
ISBN: 978-0985975869
Page Count: 246
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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