An energetic and unusual take on a familiar angels-versus-demons plot.
Debut author Noor offers a high-fantasy epic with Judeo-Christian trappings.
There are various orders of angels in the universe, including Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Thrones, Dominions, and Seraphim, among others, and each are headquartered in a specific galaxy; the Principalities are in the Andromeda Galaxy, for instance. The Dark Kingdom, ruled over by King Saty and inhabited by demons and jinn, exists in the dark spaces between galaxies—and on Earth, among humans. Young Princess Jennifer, the only daughter of King Jason of the Virtues, is a headstrong, compassionate warrior-in-training who loves her celestial home in the Comet Galaxy. One day, she encounters a small crowd of Dark Kingdom jinn attacking a young angel. She intervenes, and after the danger is dispatched, she realizes that the angel is “cute”; he’s Prince Justin of the Powers, and he and Jennifer immediately embark on adventures together, spurred by upheaval in the Dark Kingdom. It turns out that Prince Kaly and Princess Sally have grown impatient with the complacent attitude of their father, King Saty, toward the angel galaxies, which they seek to conquer. In the ensuing fast-paced narrative, Noor shows considerable skill at building dramatic tension and delivering effective action sequences, while also ably developing the story’s young leads. Readers coming to this tale expecting familiar angels from the Christian mythos, though, will need to adapt quickly, as Princess Jennifer and her cohorts sleep, dream, bleed, and bicker like average young adults. The hybridization of Christian material with standard fantasy concepts, such as warring kingdoms and military orders, is enthusiastic, if scattershot; Noor’s angels do intercede in human affairs, but they’re much more concerned with warfare and romance in a manner that calls to mind fantasy author Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses series.
An energetic and unusual take on a familiar angels-versus-demons plot.Pub Date: March 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5255-2266-6
Page Count: 294
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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