Reading this enchanting story is like touring a beautiful aquarium filled with captivating creatures, stunning scenery, and...
In this debut maritime fantasy, a young Greek woman discovers her true heritage in a seaside town in Oregon.
Andie Kailani, 18, assumes her mother, Olia, is dead when her car is found submerged in the sea. But a letter her mother left in their house in Greece suggests otherwise. To find her, Olia sends Andie on a treasure hunt to discover the last of “three fabled friends”: the books the Odyssey, Alexander the Great: History and Myth, and The Kingdoms, the last of which Andie lost during an earthquake. If she’s successful, the two will be reunited and Andie will unearth a secret about her family and herself. The clues lead her to the airport, where she meets the mysterious Tristan Alymere, a fellow treasure hunter. They both end up in Nostos, Oregon, “a small town where myths, legends, and traditions abounded.” She stays at the Morgan House with its owner, Marek Morgan, and his family; they could help or hinder her search. There, she learns about the legend of the island of Fins, which was lost in a war between the king of the meridians (mermaids) and the king of the sahs, who are part human, part moray eel. The two settings are lovely: Thessaloniki, Greece, with its network of underground Byzantine tunnels, and Nostos, with its coral-covered homes decorated with shells and pebbles from the beach. When myth and reality collide, Andie uncovers an unseen world of wonder with the ease of putting on a snorkel and mask and looking beneath the ocean’s surface for the first time. The mermaid lore is rich in detail, and Konnel’s text is peppered with unusual personifications of nature: “The sea faded into the distance, with its wrinkled forehead and bluish-green eyes, which I felt were watching me.” Surrounded by people who hold the answers to her quest, Andie finds that her challenge is often reduced to following directions and asking the right questions. But in the process, she experiences the excitement of self-discovery, a hint of romance, elements of peril, and an important life mission. The tale ends on an intriguing cliffhanger involving a fourth treasure and an important gift.
Reading this enchanting story is like touring a beautiful aquarium filled with captivating creatures, stunning scenery, and just enough danger to warrant keeping a close eye on the exit sign.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 401
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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