An exquisitely written tale featuring a noble, hopeful protagonist who finds his true love.
In Lindsey’s (Fragile Spirits, 2014, etc.) YA paranormal romance, an attraction heats up between a street-wise teen and a classmate with an affinity for the moon.
When 17-year-old Aaron “Rain” Ryland’s drug-addict mother dies in a Houston homeless shelter, a judge sends him to live with his Aunt Ruby, his mother’s twin, who’s a police officer in New Wurzburg in Texas Hill Country. Tough, optimistic, and full of pluck, Rain has a “sixth sense about danger” that kicks in when he meets pale-blue–eyed, 17-year-old Friederike “Freddie” Burkhart, whom he finds to be “fierce and smart and painfully sexy.” Spellbound, he pursues her, and although she eventually enjoys his kisses, she pushes him away to keep him safe from an unspecified threat. Rain gains the trust of Freddie’s cousins, Thomas, Kurt, and Merrick, all members of the family that runs Haven Winery; he also commits to investigating the mysteries surrounding Freddie—her love of the moon, the danger she’s in, her dad’s murder, and her clan’s mysterious connection to another family in town, the Ericksens. Doing so, however, could mean the end of his life as he knows it. Lindsey develops the characters well; at one point, for example, Aunt Ruby breaks down in tears while gifting Rain with his deceased dad’s motocross bike, and Rain responds to this with the feeling that “he’d finally found a place where he belonged.” As the story’s tension steadily rises, the descriptions feel natural and organic to the action; for example, at a gathering at Aunt Ruby’s, Mrs. Ericksen works on her needlework and watches Rain “over her reading glasses, needle stabbing in and out.” The passion between Rain and Freddie is rendered sublimely (“She all but consumed him, wrapping her arms around his neck and digging her nails into his skin. Hot. Demanding. Perfect”), with actual sex happening offstage.
An exquisitely written tale featuring a noble, hopeful protagonist who finds his true love.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63375-883-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Truly fantastic.
This dark fantasy duology opener has a magic school, a death, and five students who find themselves stranded in the wilderness.
Ren Monroe is a promising student wizard at Balmerick, a private school in the city of Kathor. Along with her best friend, Timmons, Ren is one of the few welfare students attending on a scholarship, and despite being one of the most accomplished people at the school, finding a placement in one of the top houses is proving difficult and is a hurdle in the way of the secret mission Ren has set out to accomplish. When a portal spell goes awry and Ren, Timmons, and four other students from different walks of life are thrown together into the Dires, an uncharted land where the last dragons lived, one of them ends up dead and the rest need to learn to work together to make their way back home before they succumb to the harsh environment or the terrifying revenant following them. This may well be the chance Ren was looking for to prove her worth. Placing elements of a locked-room mystery and an original magic system within the familiar trappings of a school for magic, this is a no-holds-barred tale of revenge, atonement, and the pursuit of justice set in a world diverse in skin color and social classes. Ren is a protagonist for the ages: equal parts smart, calculating, and ruthless, forming a lethal package as an avenging angel.
Truly fantastic. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-66591-868-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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