by Menna van Praag ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 2013
Beguiling and bright, van Praag’s (Happier Than She’s Ever Been, 2011, etc.) third novel delights with deft writing and...
Each lost woman may stay for 99 nights. That’s just enough time to heal a broken heart, face a demon or redirect one’s entire life.
A despairing victim of academic shenanigans, Alba Ashby finds herself rather inexplicably in front of a gorgeous house. Alba is gifted with the ability to see the colors of emotions, bubbles of laughter and sparks of love. The proprietress, Peggy Abbot, invites her into a most magical place. For nearly 200 years, the house has stood invisible to most people, dropping its enchanted veil only for women who have lost hope. It offers sanctuary, advice (in the form of cryptic messages dropped from above), gifts (everything from birthday cakes to pianos to never-ending wardrobes) and advice from famous previous visitors—including Dorothy Parker, Daphne du Maurier and Caroline Herschel—each of who speaks from her photograph on the wall. This summer, the house’s residents include Greer, a glamorous but failed actress reeling from her fiance’s infidelity; Carmen, a sultry Portuguese singer who has buried something dangerous under the morning glories; Alba, who must face not only her ruined career, but also her horrible family when she receives word that her beloved, but mad, mother has died. At the reading of the will, Alba is given a box of love letters written between her mother and Alba’s real father. Can she find him? Will Stella, the ghost in the kitchen, help her? And why does the house, with its magical bookshelves, force her to get novels from Zoë, the pixielike librarian? Peggy herself is troubled this summer. The house has informed her that today is her last birthday. Has she squandered her life helping other women when she ought to have married Harry?
Beguiling and bright, van Praag’s (Happier Than She’s Ever Been, 2011, etc.) third novel delights with deft writing and charming characters.Pub Date: April 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-670-78463-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
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by TJ Klune ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
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
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PERSPECTIVES
by Kevin Hearne ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 4, 2020
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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