Combine Princess Bride with Germanic history circa 1500, add a dash of Lord of the Rings, and there’s a week of good fun in...
As the early-16th-century Peasants’ War tears Palatinate Germany apart, Pötzsch (The Werewolf of Bamber, 2015, etc.) follows a young noblewoman’s epic quest, sparked by a signet ring once owned by the legendary Barbarossa—Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor.
Agnes, preferring falconry to needlepoint, is the teenage daughter of Philipp von Erfenstein, Trifels Castle’s knight castellan. Her best friend is Mathis, son of Trifels’ blacksmith. Adventures begin when Agnes’ falcon, Parcival, returns from hunting, Barbarossa’s ring tied to his talons. Simultaneously, the countryside is beset by bandits led by Black Hans, a rogue knight. Since Mathis is fascinated with firearms and can work alchemy with gunpowder, von Erfenstein charges him with building a cannon to destroy Black Hans’ fortress. Pötzsch’s tale thereafter spins off in multiple directions. As Barbarossa’s ring sparks visions of past lives, Agnes is forced to marry a dastardly count, then she’s captured by camp-following white slavers and forced to loot battlefield corpses. Mathis is shanghaied into gunsmithing for peasant rebels led by a diabolical hunchback. After battles, imprisonment, and wounds, the pair reunites, learning that Barbarossa’s ring is linked to secrets hidden at a monastery. Central casting provides a wise old priest; a minstrel knight with surprisingly wicked sword skills; a merciless assassin dressed all in black; and dozens of distinctive bit players. The dialogue is offered in modern syntax, sometimes slipping into anachronisms, but Pötzsch paints picturesque landscapes, whether it’s damp, dark castles, the stink of a medieval tannery, or whirlpool-plagued Rhine River rapids, and offers esoteric information about arquebuses, falconets, landsknecht mercenaries, the Holy Lance, and a synopsis of the Hohenstaufen and Habsburg aristocracies.
Combine Princess Bride with Germanic history circa 1500, add a dash of Lord of the Rings, and there’s a week of good fun in this 600-page-plus tome.Pub Date: July 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-544-31951-6
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
To her usual mix of love, mystery, and passion, Roberts (Sanctuary, 1997, etc.)—author of 115 romancers in some 17 years—adds Renaissance art and a decidedly Medici-like family: the Joneses of Maine. Dr. Miranda Jones, nearly six feet with flaming red hair and a glacial reserve, is an archeometrist who specializes in the analyzing and dating of Renaissance bronze sculpture. Miranda hopes to secure a world-class reputation for herself by authenticating a 15th-century statue of the Dark Lady, one of the mistresses of Lorenzo the Magnificent, as the undiscovered work of a young Michelangelo. Miranda's mother, Dr. Elizabeth Standford-Jones, the emotionally remote director of the Standjo art lab in Florence, has summoned her daughter from the family's Victorian cliffside home in Jones Point, Maine, to test the statue. Meanwhile, Miranda's father, equally remote, is an archaeologist who spends more time at his digs than at home. In fact, no one in the Jones family has made a successful run at marriage, a failure that Miranda and her alcoholic brother Andrew call the Jones curse. As for the statue, when it's discovered to be a fake, Miranda sets out to prove that someone stole the original. In this she's helped by gorgeous art thief Ryan Boldari (half-Italian, half-Irish), who's come to Jones Point to steal yet another bronze, which also turns out to be a forgery. Ryan's plan had been to use Miranda as a pawn, but now, naturally, he finds himself falling hard for her. While the two search for bronzes, a standard-issue romance-novel psychotic is stalking them. Most readers will twig to the killer's identity: Here, as always, Roberts's sexual tension is more compelling than her suspense. Perhaps it's time to take a sabbatical from the pink sweatshop and turn her considerable wit and narrative skills to a more original piece of work.
Pub Date: March 23, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-14387-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
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