by Nova Ren Suma ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 2018
So nuanced it requires a second reading.
A young woman leaves home in search of a refuge where she can reinvent herself but discovers she can’t escape the past.
Sabina Tremper’s mother kicks her out in order to put space between Bina and her volatile stepsisters. The next day, she arrives at Catherine House, a boardinghouse for young women in Manhattan’s West Village, where her mother spent a long-ago summer that Bina grew up hearing stories about. Upon arriving, she receives a warning from the mother of a departing boarder: Don’t move in. And the questions begin piling up. Why does the house seem to have an unbreakable hold on everyone who inhabits its century-old walls? Why is the landlady so pleased to have all the rooms filled in a particular manner? Who is Bina’s new friend Monet Mathis, a reckless girl who hides behind colorful wigs? The house and its occupants have many secrets, but 17-year-old Bina is discouraged from asking questions. The lines separating reality from hallucination and outright lies is thin. Bina is a self-proclaimed chronic liar and a thief, an intersection that results in an unreliable first-person narrator from start to finish. However, her narration is quietly poetic. There’s a little diversity among the boarders, although most default to white. Bina is white and Jewish; Monet has light brown skin.
So nuanced it requires a second reading. (Suspense. 12-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61620-373-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
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by Rebecca Ross ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 26, 2023
The well-paced romantic tension is a highlight of this enjoyable duology closer.
Even a war driven by gods can’t sever communication between journalist lovers Iris and Roman in this steampunk-adjacent romantic adventure.
A prologue sets the scene: Dacre, a god strummed to sleep by magic in Divine Rivals (2023), will not slumber forever. His willingness to wage war to acquire more powerful magic leads him to lay waste to entire towns, and Inkridden Tribune journalist Iris Winnow and war correspondent Roman Kitt can no longer be assured the other is safe—or even still alive. In Iris’ world of cigarette smoke, copper pipes, and driving goggles, colleagues affectionately call each other by their last names, watch each other’s backs, and face danger on the front lines. Though Underling Correspondent Roman is traveling with Dacre’s army, he questions why he was healed of his grievous wounds, while at the same time, he gradually recovers memories of Iris and recalls that she was special to him. Their magically connected typewriters allow for the rediscovery of their love and for communicating potentially deadly information about the invasion of Hawk Shire. The story primarily unfolds from Iris’ and Roman’s viewpoints, and while the prose occasionally uses well-worn phrases, Anglophiles will particularly enjoy the worldbuilding, and returning readers will welcome appearances from Capt. Keegan Torres; her wife, Marisol; and Dacre’s archnemesis—and wife—the goddess Enva. Main characters present white.
The well-paced romantic tension is a highlight of this enjoyable duology closer. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250857453
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
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by Scott Reintgen ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 28, 2023
Truly fantastic.
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This dark fantasy duology opener has a magic school, a death, and five students who find themselves stranded in the wilderness.
Ren Monroe is a promising student wizard at Balmerick, a private school in the city of Kathor. Along with her best friend, Timmons, Ren is one of the few welfare students attending on a scholarship, and despite being one of the most accomplished people at the school, finding a placement in one of the top houses is proving difficult and is a hurdle in the way of the secret mission Ren has set out to accomplish. When a portal spell goes awry and Ren, Timmons, and four other students from different walks of life are thrown together into the Dires, an uncharted land where the last dragons lived, one of them ends up dead and the rest need to learn to work together to make their way back home before they succumb to the harsh environment or the terrifying revenant following them. This may well be the chance Ren was looking for to prove her worth. Placing elements of a locked-room mystery and an original magic system within the familiar trappings of a school for magic, this is a no-holds-barred tale of revenge, atonement, and the pursuit of justice set in a world diverse in skin color and social classes. Ren is a protagonist for the ages: equal parts smart, calculating, and ruthless, forming a lethal package as an avenging angel.
Truly fantastic. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-66591-868-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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