A curtain call for Veryan's Sanguinet series (Sanguinet's Crown, 1985, etc.), which, like her Golden Chronicles and Jeweled Man sagas, are Georgian/Regency-period adventures with various dastardly groups threatening to subvert the English government. Here, a battle-scarred, oddly magnetic veteran of the Sanguinet conflicts arrives in the country to outwit enemies and win a lady. Marietta Washington and elder sister Fanny are pretty, sharp-witted, but impoverished, thanks to the gambling forays of their weak but goodhearted widower father, Sir Lionel. Also at home, in addition to younger brother Arthur, is Aunt Dova, an eerie but lovable bird who converses with lifelike dolls and, in disguise, tells fortunes, having been blessed with ``A Mystical Window Through Time.'' The Warrington house is part of the estate of Lanterns, owned by the ever-absent Lord Temple, and is rumored to be haunted and to contain a fabled, priceless jewel, ``The Sigh of Saladin.'' Suddenly arriving to camp out in Lanterns is the polite but evasive Diecon, a retired Major who becomes Arthur's idol. Marietta, puzzled, is drawn to Diecon—but is he really just a free-spirited ex-soldier? What explains his brilliance at the violin? Meanwhile, Marietta is courted by the handsome, supposedly wealthy Blake, whose relationship to Diecon, when revealed, makes for an unpleasant surprise. Before Diecon's real identity is revealed and Blake vanquished, Diecon and Marietta deal with the tragedy of Marietta's brother Eric, involved in treason; Diecon's friend Joselyn courts Fanny; and there is a return of the terrifying Sanguinet mob (Claude S., the leader, is now deceased) involving a kidnapping and a grand showdown in Lanterns. The villains are vanquished, the Sigh of Saladin makes an appearance, and true lovers are united. Reliable Veryan, mixing romance, humor, light mystery, and a satisfyingly noisy finish with just enough touches of period diction and mores to add the right Regency flavor.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14640-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Much will be made of the kinship of Hill and his superstar father, Stephen King, but Hill can stand on his own two feet....
A rock star buys a ghost who chases him from New York to Florida, blood spurting all the way.
Jude Coyne, after a career in the darker reaches of the rock-music world, lives in upstate New York with Georgia, the latest in a succession of young pierced admirers he calls by the states of their birth. Georgia’s predecessor, Florida, is at the heart of the troubles that arrive when Coyne answers an ad offering a ghost, something special to add to his collection of creepy items that includes a Mexican snuff film. The ghost inhabits a garish suit of clothes that arrives in a heart-shaped box, and the situation is a set-up. Knowing Coyne’s taste for the weird, Florida’s sister has inveigled him into buying the soul of her and Florida’s stupendously evil stepfather, Craddock, a stinker who learned a lot of very bad magic as a soldier in Vietnam. The motive is the apparent suicide of Florida, who Coyne sent home after one too many bouts of depression. Craddock’s ghost immediately gets into Coyne’s head, urging him to murder Georgia and then commit suicide. Coyne resists, but the bad vibes are too much for his gay personal assistant, who flees the farm and hangs himself. Craddock persists in his attack on Coyne, using a ghostly truck as his assault vehicle. Lesser rock stars would have capitulated early on, but Georgia turns out to be full of spunk, and Coyne’s German Shepherds are fierce protectors who the ghost greatly fears. To get rid of Craddock, Coyne figures he will have to go to Florida to find out just what did happen to make that ghost such an abusive spirit.
Much will be made of the kinship of Hill and his superstar father, Stephen King, but Hill can stand on his own two feet. He’s got horror down pat, and his debut is hair-raising fun.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2007
ISBN: 0-06-114793-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2007
This vibrant, thoughtful book from Katz (Over the Moon, 1997) continues her tribute to her adopted daughter, Lena, born in Guatemala. Lena is “seven. I am the color of cinnamon. Mom says she could eat me up”; she learns during a painting lesson that to get the color brown, she will have to “mix red, yellow, black, and white paints.” They go for a walk to observe the many shades of brown: they see Sonia, who is the color of creamy peanut butter; Isabella, who is chocolate brown; Lucy, both peachy and tan; Jo-Jin, the color of honey; Kyle, “like leaves in fall”; Mr. Pellegrino, the color of pizza crust, golden brown. Lena realizes that every shade is beautiful, then mixes her paints accordingly for portraits of her friends—“The colors of us!” Bold illustrations celebrate diversity with a child’s open-hearted sensibility and a mother’s love. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5864-8
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
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