Readers just can’t get enough of Singh (Silver Silence, 2017, etc.) and her exquisitely rendered paranormal romance.
Holly Chang, formerly known as Sorrow, is still coming to terms with the brutal attack that left her uniquely immortal, but when she discovers there’s a hefty reward for her capture, she has to work with the powerful but aggravating vampire Venom to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Nearly four years have passed since Holly Chang was attacked by the psychotically insane Archangel Uram and forced to drink his blood, changing her into an immortal being who’s not quite vampire but definitely not human. No one is quite sure what to do with her, but she knows it’s time to move away from the deeply angry and violent persona Sorrow and reconnect with her old self, including re-establishing ties to her human family. She also thinks her journey may be tied in a very deep—and possibly romantic—way to Venom, the vampire member of the powerful Seven, immortals who serve Raphael, the Archangel of New York. Venom is also a unique being, more vampire than Holly but also possessing snakelike aspects, like the capacity to mesmerize and a poisonous bite, two paranormal facets that Holly shares, though no one is sure why. Holly is learning to control her strength and these elements, but everything is disrupted when she's nearly kidnapped and learns there’s an enormous bounty to capture her alive. Meanwhile, Holly is feeling a psychic pull to Europe, and she worries that somehow Uram may be trying to control her from beyond the grave. As Viper and Holly race for answers, they may find salvation in each other by healing their profound, shared sense of otherness. Another Guild Hunter title replete with complex worldbuilding and the perfect balance of horror, heroism, passion, honor, and, always, always, a message of redemptive love.
Readers just can’t get enough of Singh (Silver Silence, 2017, etc.) and her exquisitely rendered paranormal romance.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-451-48824-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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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