A fun, inventive superhero tale with a brave teenage girl at its heart.
This second book in the teen paranormal Legacy of Sadie Mae Stevens series introduces a new and dangerous foe for the crimson-tressed title character.
In the first installment (The Gordite Witch, 2012), Sadie Mae, a South Carolina teen with “pecan-brown skin and fiery red hair that for the life of her will not dye,” discovered her mother’s death when she was a child was actually the result of an interdimensional fight with a zombie sorceress known as the Gordite Witch. Christine Stevens wasn’t human but a Daughter of the Seas from the underwater planet Dylan. Like her mother, Sadie Mae possesses supercharged blood that allows her to produce toxic vapor from her hands and eyes that will crystallize into chains to bind the enemies of the Dylanians—the Tetradyne Rulers and their servants, the Pigwallers—and protect humans as well. She also has access to a magical forest all her own, where she’s mentored by a violet-eyed mountain named Lendra and trained by a human/frog hybrid called Norris. After avenging her mother’s death, Sadie Mae ignores a summons from Lendra about the imminent threat of Torene the Tornado in favor of hanging out with her part-Dylanian friends Jalind, Printa, and Harrah and foster parents Suzanna and Dr. Heathcliff Brimm. When Torene appears in Sadie Mae’s forest and kidnaps Norris, the heroine realizes she’s neglected her duties and put her family and friends in danger. As if that’s not enough, there’s a cute new boy named Lander Vandersal in school, and he won’t stop staring at Sadie. Miller (Promises Unbroken, 2015, etc.) delivers sentences that are often lacking in rhythm—“At best she hoped his hype would not end up turning into a weak distraction.” But the author’s imagination remains rich, with the denizens of Sadie Mae’s mystical forest far from the fantasy clichés of elves and dragons (they include graceful “baby dinosaur-sized” green creatures that look like turtles and turn out to be Siamese twins). Sadie Mae is a relatable protagonist who messes up mightily and must deal with the consequences of her actions. Ultimately, she’ll have to make an ethical decision that will challenge everything she’s learned.
A fun, inventive superhero tale with a brave teenage girl at its heart.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
PERSPECTIVES
A thrilling romance that could use more even pacing.
For the second time in her life, Leo must choose between her family and true love.
Nineteen-year-old Princess Leonie Kolburg’s royal family is bankrupt. In order to salvage the fortune they accrued before humans fled the frozen Earth 170 years ago, Leonie’s father is forcing her to participate in the Valg Season, an elaborate set of matchmaking events held to facilitate the marriages of rich and royal teens. Leo grudgingly joins in even though she has other ideas: She’s invented a water filtration system that, if patented, could provide a steady income—that is if Leo’s calculating Aunt Freja, the Captain of the ship hosting the festivities, stops blocking her at every turn. Just as Leo is about to give up hope, her long-lost love, Elliot, suddenly appears onboard three years after Leo’s family forced her to break off their engagement. Donne (Brightly Burning, 2018) returns to space, this time examining the fascinatingly twisted world of the rich and famous. Leo and her peers are nuanced, deeply felt, and diverse in terms of sexuality but not race, which may be a function of the realities of wealth and power. The plot is fast paced although somewhat uneven: Most of the action resolves in the last quarter of the book, which makes the resolutions to drawn-out conflicts feel rushed.
A thrilling romance that could use more even pacing. (Science fiction. 16-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-328-94894-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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