A breezy, soap opera–style story frothed with equal parts jealousy, vengeance, greed, and glamour.
A melodrama features a scorned wife and her dire desire to end up a grieving widow rather than an embittered ex-spouse.
Swiss writer Greco (Angelica’s Discoveries, 2012, etc.) delivers a novel of deceit and comeuppance starring Daisy While, a woman on a mission. The briskly narrated opening chapter finds Daisy dashing through a hospital ward elegantly disguised in an oversized purple hat, carrying a designer purse, and brandishing a perfume bottle filled with poison. Beguiling yet with deadly intentions and “fully loaded with hate,” she heads toward her estranged husband Bernard’s room, where he lies dying. The couple has been estranged for nearly a decade, and Daisy has determined that becoming a widow rather than a divorcée would better suit her high-society reputation, so she’s meticulously plotted her husband’s demise. Not one for surprises, however, Daisy is completely flummoxed upon discovering an unknown woman at Bernard’s bedside. A heated confrontation with the stranger has Daisy on the run. Meanwhile, upon realizing the visitor was his estranged wife, Bernard reflects on his marriage to Daisy, a selfish woman who’d enjoyed a clandestine affair with one of his wealthy business partners. Greco dedicates a good portion of her delightfully devilish book to Daisy and Bernard’s bittersweet back story: he was a rugged, honorable military lieutenant in World War II who’d enjoyed a whirlwind romance with Daisy, a British nanny who grew up poor. Bernard had whisked her away to his Swiss village in 1950, and they promptly married and relocated to England, where he spoiled her and their children. Daisy soon developed a fetish for extravagance, manipulation, and the rush of hunting animals, but it was her indiscretion that cost her Bernard’s love. Meanwhile, Bernard’s old schoolmate Graziella is more than happy to replace her. When Daisy’s plan goes even more awry, she becomes embroiled in another problematic scheme. The author, a clever storyteller, wastes no time with exposition or extraneous dialogue; this is a swift, bracing tale stocked with a minimum of characters. Yet those players are addictive personalities who are well-developed and believable. The initially confusing conclusion is wrapped up as quickly as Daisy and Bernard’s tumultuous situation is presented in the opening pages. But their journey and the heroine’s epiphany make the tale entertaining, enjoyable, and easily devoured in one sitting for fast readers.
A breezy, soap opera–style story frothed with equal parts jealousy, vengeance, greed, and glamour.Pub Date: March 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-1321-8
Page Count: 162
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
One small step, no giant leaps.
Weir (The Martian, 2014) returns with another off-world tale, this time set on a lunar colony several decades in the future.
Jasmine “Jazz” Bashara is a 20-something deliveryperson, or “porter,” whose welder father brought her up on Artemis, a small multidomed city on Earth’s moon. She has dreams of becoming a member of the Extravehicular Activity Guild so she’ll be able to get better work, such as leading tours on the moon’s surface, and pay off a substantial personal debt. For now, though, she has a thriving side business procuring low-end black-market items to people in the colony. One of her best customers is Trond Landvik, a wealthy businessman who, one day, offers her a lucrative deal to sabotage some of Sanchez Aluminum’s automated lunar-mining equipment. Jazz agrees and comes up with a complicated scheme that involves an extended outing on the lunar surface. Things don’t go as planned, though, and afterward, she finds Landvik murdered. Soon, Jazz is in the middle of a conspiracy involving a Brazilian crime syndicate and revolutionary technology. Only by teaming up with friends and family, including electronics scientist Martin Svoboda, EVA expert Dale Shapiro, and her father, will she be able to finish the job she started. Readers expecting The Martian’s smart math-and-science problem-solving will only find a smattering here, as when Jazz figures out how to ignite an acetylene torch during a moonwalk. Strip away the sci-fi trappings, though, and this is a by-the-numbers caper novel with predictable beats and little suspense. The worldbuilding is mostly bland and unimaginative (Artemis apartments are cramped; everyone uses smartphonelike “Gizmos”), although intriguing elements—such as the fact that space travel is controlled by Kenya instead of the United States or Russia—do show up occasionally. In the acknowledgements, Weir thanks six women, including his publisher and U.K. editor, “for helping me tackle the challenge of writing a female narrator”—as if women were an alien species. Even so, Jazz is given such forced lines as “I giggled like a little girl. Hey, I’m a girl, so I’m allowed.”
One small step, no giant leaps.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-44812-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.
After 1,000 years of peace, whispers that “the Nameless One will return” ignite the spark that sets the world order aflame.
No, the Nameless One is not a new nickname for Voldemort. Here, evil takes the shape of fire-breathing dragons—beasts that feed off chaos and imbalance—set on destroying humankind. The leader of these creatures, the Nameless One, has been trapped in the Abyss for ages after having been severely wounded by the sword Ascalon wielded by Galian Berethnet. These events brought about the current order: Virtudom, the kingdom set up by Berethnet, is a pious society that considers all dragons evil. In the East, dragons are worshiped as gods—but not the fire-breathing type. These dragons channel the power of water and are said to be born of stars. They forge a connection with humans by taking riders. In the South, an entirely different way of thinking exists. There, a society of female mages called the Priory worships the Mother. They don’t believe that the Berethnet line, continued by generations of queens, is the sacred key to keeping the Nameless One at bay. This means he could return—and soon. “Do you not see? It is a cycle.” The one thing uniting all corners of the world is fear. Representatives of each belief system—Queen Sabran the Ninth of Virtudom, hopeful dragon rider Tané of the East, and Ead Duryan, mage of the Priory from the South—are linked by the common goal of keeping the Nameless One trapped at any cost. This world of female warriors and leaders feels natural, and while there is a “chosen one” aspect to the tale, it’s far from the main point. Shannon’s depth of imagination and worldbuilding are impressive, as this 800-pager is filled not only with legend, but also with satisfying twists that turn legend on its head. Shannon isn’t new to this game of complex storytelling. Her Bone Season novels (The Song Rising, 2017, etc.) navigate a multilayered society of clairvoyants. Here, Shannon chooses a more traditional view of magic, where light fights against dark, earth against sky, and fire against water. Through these classic pairings, an entirely fresh and addicting tale is born. Shannon may favor detailed explication over keeping a steady pace, but the epic converging of plotlines at the end is enough to forgive.
A celebration of fantasy that melds modern ideology with classic tropes. More of these dragons, please.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63557-029-8
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
