In this flat sequel to The Legend of Lady Ilena (2002), the young Scottish chieftain, seeking redemption in brave deeds after disgracing herself in battle, saves the life of King Arthur himself. Stunned to see her betrothed, Durant, in an enemy’s chariot, Ilena temporarily falls behind during a fight and is forced in shame to leave her new home at Dun Alyn for a time. Captured by allies of the invading Saxons, she sees her darling, who had been drugged into compliance, stabbed from behind, and then breaks out with her royal fellow captive in time to marshal forces for a climactic battle. Malone’s use of first-person present tense adds neither drama nor intensity; Ilena comes off as wooden rather than tough—not even a sympathizer’s “life goes on, Ilena. It does not seem to now, but it does. Gradually, slowly, happiness will creep back into your days,” generates more than a tepid response—and readers tolerant of the stiff prose, or the frequent recaps and revisits to the locales of events in the previous episode, will be annoyed when the author cuts her tale off before the aforementioned battle for a long, self-serving afterword. Promising plotline; lackluster writing. (Historical fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2005
ISBN: 0-385-73225-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
Hobbs (Beardream, p. 462, etc.), setting his novel on Washington's Cape Flattery in 1874, presents a hero who not only has the intelligence to solve a murder, but the resources to help bring a killer to justice. Nathan MacAllister, 14, has a fairly exciting life as a de facto assistant lighthouse keeper to his father, retired Captain Zachary MacAllister. When not tending the lighthouse, Nathan looks after his sick mother and fishes with a friend, Lighthouse George, a Makah fisherman. When a sailing ship, the L.S. Burnaby, crashes on the rocks near the lighthouse, and the captain's murdered body washes ashore, Nathan becomes an amateur sleuth. At first, he believes (as the Makah do) that an evil spirit is at work, but certain events—his neighbor, Captain Bim, burying a treasure box at night, the discovery of a skeleton in a Makah canoe hanging in the treetops, the appearance of a charismatic yet strange new shopkeeper, Mr. Kane—lead Nathan to sensibly conclude that the mystery has more to do with real people than ghosts. While the mystery is compelling, it is Hobbs's deft weaving of Makah culture into the story that resonates, from their harvesting of wood without cutting any trees to their generosity to friends. A robust adventure in an intriguing setting. (map) (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-688-14193-5
Page Count: 195
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1997
A tedious tale of a teenager who finds out that his 40-something mother has been a fugitive since the era of the Vietnam War. After nearly 15 years of abrupt moves, name changes, no telephones, and cash-only transactions, Toby has never cracked his mother's reticence about her past, nor tried very hard to find out about his father. Suddenly, clues begin falling into his lap: an old photo in the house of a suspiciously new ``old friend,'' a sheaf of not-very-well-hidden birth certificates and driver's licenses, an Internet news story about a 1970 raid on a student group supposedly plotting a bombing, found by chance while Toby researches a school report. When Toby sees his mother's face on a poster at the local sheriff's, he knows that the stakes are about to be pulled up again—but this time he opts to stay behind as she takes off for the Canadian border. Depending heavily on chance discoveries and her protagonist's strangely mild curiosity, Ryan creates neither suspense nor credibility, leaving readers to wonder how, even with the aid of a national underground network, Toby's mother fooled both her son and the authorities for so long. This sketchy mise-en-scäne, plus a cut-and-dried ending—Toby's mother reappears as he's telling his class how proud he is of her, turns herself in, and then learns that her protest group had been set up by government agents—wastes characters who often display some surprising depths. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-689-80789-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
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