A supernatural sequel that echoes the best and worst aspects of its predecessor.
In this second installment of Ashman’s (Black Hollow, 2012) dark fantasy saga, the evil Wizard remains trapped in Black Hollow—but that doesn’t mean that all’s well in this magical world.
In the series’ first novella, unlikely heroine Jessica Bannerly came through a portal into the fantastical world of the Silver Glade only to discover that her arrival could mean the possible return of the Wizard, the land’s former overlord. He sought to sacrifice Jessica in order to break the spells that kept him confined to his cavernous prison for all eternity. However, Jessica was killed by demonic rats, which foiled the Wizard’s plan. At the start of this book, he remains imprisoned and uses his powers to try to lure someone else with Jessica’s blood to his lair—her older brother, Justin. The Wizard uses a magical mental connection to force Jessica’s best friend, a newly turned werewolf named Ciara, to deliver Justin into his clutches. Ciara, who mourns the loss of both Jessica and her own brother, is in a weakened emotional state and thus susceptible to the Wizard’s charms. However, when she develops romantic feelings for Justin, things grow more complicated. Throw in a fairy priestess, a group of unicorn guardians, a shape-shifting vampire girl and a gargoyle—not to mention a few dragons—and readers may easily become overwhelmed by the story. This imaginative sequel shares the same primary weakness as the first brief installment: It packs a little too much into too few pages. However, Ashman again creates a magical atmosphere that’s dark and disturbing, like M. Night Shyamalan’s film The Village crossed with The Lord of the Rings series, with an extra dose of gore (“All around, werewolves pounced…filling the air with the loud cracks of dying Fairies”). Readers will likely want to bask in the creepiness instead of simply trying to keep track of what’s going on.
A supernatural sequel that echoes the best and worst aspects of its predecessor.Pub Date: March 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-1483615622
Page Count: 92
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2014
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
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