Sci-fi and fantasy merge to form an entertaining romp in space.
A military spacecraft captain tries to keep her crew safe while battling pirates, creatures, and an alien race that Holy Scriptures declared eradicated in this sci-fi adventure.
Capt. Shirakaya is ecstatic, having found a protostar that can replenish her sorcery with magical ions. Unfortunately, aliens launch a sudden assault that Shirakaya and the people aboard Celestial narrowly survive. Following the attack, the sorceress starts to feel her magic dwindling. What’s worse is that the aliens appeared to be koth’vurians, a race long ago vanquished, according to religious text. The Ruzurai, rulers of the Tal’manac Order, refuse to believe that Shirakaya witnessed the koth’vurians and send her on another mission. The captain and her crew, including oracle (and Shirakaya’s lover) Jedalia, search for a tourist cruise that’s gone offline, only to uncover a hijacking. Shirakaya’s subsequent shore leave to see her family turns out much the same: she and bodyguard Yarasuro have to rescue her brother Khal’jan from a murderous artificial intelligence. It isn’t long, though, before Shirakaya once again faces off against the koth’vurians, led by the formidable Ashkaratoth. Shirakaya’s predicament, meanwhile, turns dire as her magic continues to weaken. She’s not able to save everyone, and she fears she’s lost so many people that the Ruzurai will soon have her court-martialed. The story delves right into action and rarely lets up. The Celestial crew’s exploits are endless fun, braving monsters from the air and sea, with an emergency touchdown on planet MJ453 and a crash landing on another, unknown world. Shirakaya’s arcane abilities are familiar but chic; she casts icicles and fireballs and uses telekinesis to hurl enemies through the air. There are times when the novel feels like a series of short tales, the captain and others jumping from one misfortune to the next. Centeno (Blood Immortal, 2015, etc.) does, however, tie them together, especially with characters like Xorvaj, a pirate who threatens to kill children in one scene and returns later as a pseudo-ally. The concluding chapter takes the saga on a drastic turn, but it’s a welcome one that puts Shirakaya on the same side as seedy characters and sets the stage for Book 2.
Sci-fi and fantasy merge to form an entertaining romp in space.Pub Date: April 4, 2019
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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