A daring and thematically sure-footed Scottish tale.
This debut novel sees horror and magic enter a young girl’s life after her mother is accused of witchcraft.
In 15th-century Scotland, Bridget MacTigue is a widow who runs a small farm with her two daughters. Agnes is 3 years old and Bernadette is 12. One night, the sheriff of Moray visits, along with Janet MacTigue—Bridget’s kinswoman and friend, who recently suffered a miscarriage—and accuses her of witchery. The sheriff arrests and imprisons Bridget in a pit on High Street in the town of Forresgem. On Bridget’s instruction, Bernadette transfers their meager possessions to a nearby cave. But before she can bring Agnes, their cottage is raided and the child is taken by a “well-to-do man.” Bernadette then moves through town disguised as a short-haired, male ragamuffin. She listens at the pit where Bridget awaits execution and hears of the love triangle that developed between Janet, Father Dougal, and her mother. “Look forward and love yourself,” Bridget tells her daughter, shortly before her cruel demise. Later, with little will to live herself, Bernadette encounters a Slig Maith, “a dangerous and magical being.” The beautiful woman is a queen who offers to train Bernadette in the powers she already has, then get retribution on those who destroyed her family. The queen also describes the end of the Slig Maith if humanity’s rapacious expansion isn’t checked. In her series opener, Johnson builds an effective period piece enlivened by nuanced fantasy flourishes. Bridget’s relationship with Father Dougal is a heart-rending example of women treated like chattel. She says, “When I looked into his eyes, I could feel doors opening into other places and other people.” Bernadette eventually meets her own Broonie (or house elf), Murray, who teaches her reading and writing, and a mental and physical trainer named Liu Shen, who introduces her to the vital forces qi and energia. Scottish folklore and martial arts are an odd mix, but the author effectively combines them in a teen battling the controlling toxicity of the church. This installment focuses on the heroine’s revenge and its surprising outcome, successfully whetting reader appetites for a sequel with higher stakes.
A daring and thematically sure-footed Scottish tale.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-982212-07-0
Page Count: 220
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
