This supernatural thriller’s humor and well-developed relationships will keep the pages turning.
Ferdinand’s sharp debut novel features a shape-shifting private eye who’s hellbent on slaying demonic beasts.
In a darkened alley one night, monster hunter (and shape-shifting werewolf) Nicholas “Nick” Pardoner comes across a vampire named Alex, and the two grapple before eventually forging an unlikely alliance. Alex turns out to be a goofy, satisfying foil for the straight-shooting Nick, as well as a powerful force in his own right. The overall story is, at its heart, a classic odd-couple tale, as the two misfits band together to achieve a common goal—to fight Xyj’Ru, a murder-happy demon of the underworld. Eventually, though, the police begin closing in on them, so Nick and Alex bring a nosy cop, John Doderberg, into their fold. It takes some doing, but they eventually convince him (after plying him with alcohol) that he must join them on their hunt in order to solve the mystery. The tale has the typical elements of a vampire novel, such as eroticism and battles with supernatural and super-powerful beings. It also features overly convenient magic, as when Alex and Nick escape trouble by conjuring just the right spell. In this particular regard, it’s a bit like the Harry Potter series or Twilight; overall, though, the subject matter here can be quite adult. These elements, however, won’t take away from readers’ enjoyment, as the novel is also packed to the brim with wonderfully flowing dialogue; take, for example, Alex’s comment on humans’ desire to believe in the supernatural: “You wouldn’t believe how many people have hired me to look for ghosts or poltergeists, and then been disappointed when I told them it was just air in their plumbing making those clanking and moaning sounds.” Ferdinand also makes a point of not relying only on fight scenes to push the narrative forward, as is common in other vampire series; instead, he delves deeply into Alex and Nick’s budding relationship, which begins on uneasy terms.
This supernatural thriller’s humor and well-developed relationships will keep the pages turning.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500874483
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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