In 1944, Dart and Tamar, code names for two undercover operatives for Britain’s Special Operations Executive, parachute into Holland to reorganize the Dutch resistance movement. In 1955, a 15-year-old British girl named Tamar receives a box from her grandfather who has committed suicide. In it are clues to her grandfather’s past and her own identity, but she must go on a journey to make sense of the clues. In Peet’s Carnegie Medal–winning work, he tells the interwoven stories of Tamar the spy and Tamar the teenager in beautifully visualized episodes. Meticulously crafted scenes develop this long, complex and elegant work that is both a historical novel and a reflection on history—how a young girl’s life has been shaped by a past she never knew. Readers will be torn: They’ll want to slow down and savor the gorgeously detailed prose, but speed up to find out what happens next. Simply superb. (notes, acknowledgments) (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-7636-3488-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2007
This second series installment will amuse, absorb, devastate, and tantalize fans of the first.
A sisterhood of extraordinary female fighters navigates new trials.
In this sequel to Champion of Fate (2023), Reed has jumped into her new role as a full-fledged Aristene, one of an order of immortal women warriors who groom and sacrifice heroes to their goddess, Kleia Gloria. With three celebrated fallen heroes under her belt already, Reed and her feisty colt, Silco, seem destined for a greater purpose within the Aristene order. Meanwhile, Lyonene, Reed’s beautiful and equally deadly sister, surprises everyone by defying the goddess and falling in love with her hero, and Veridian, their hotheaded sister (who trained with them, but left the Aristene), is finding little happiness as an “immortal outcast.” Evolving dynamics between the sisters soon take a back seat to a monstrous emerging threat that causes no shortage of grisly violence. When the growing tension among the Aristene collides with sinister machinations in the world of men, each sister faces unwelcome but grimly satisfying plot twists. As in the first book, the strength and the complexity of the female friendships are the most rewarding elements of the story, especially in contrast to the moments of patriarchal violence. The Aristene’s unique bonds with their chosen immortal horses will also delight readers who yearn for equine friends. The characters are varied in appearance; many are cued white.
This second series installment will amuse, absorb, devastate, and tantalize fans of the first. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9780062977236
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
Beautifully written historical fiction about giddy, queer first love.
Finally, the intersectional, lesbian, historical teen novel so many readers have been waiting for.
Lily Hu has spent all her life in San Francisco’s Chinatown, keeping mostly to her Chinese American community both in and out of school. As she makes her way through her teen years in the 1950s, she starts growing apart from her childhood friends as her passion for rockets and space exploration grows—along with her curiosity about a few blocks in the city that her parents have warned her to avoid. A budding relationship develops with her first White friend, Kathleen, and together they sneak out to the Telegraph Club lesbian bar, where they begin to explore their sexuality as well as their relationship to each other. Lo’s lovely, realistic, and queer-positive tale is a slow burn, following Lily’s own gradual realization of her sexuality while she learns how to code-switch between being ostensibly heterosexual Chinatown Lily and lesbian Telegraph Bar Lily. In this meticulously researched title, Lo skillfully layers rich details, such as how Lily has to deal with microaggressions from gay and straight women alike and how all of Chinatown has to be careful of the insidious threat of McCarthyism. Actual events, such as Madame Chiang Kai-shek’s 1943 visit to San Francisco, form a backdrop to this story of a journey toward finding one’s authentic self.
Beautifully written historical fiction about giddy, queer first love. (author’s note) (Historical romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-55525-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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