An elaborate entertainment that might have benefited from a tighter presentation.
In Mendelson’s novel, a bored married couple return to the Spanish city where they honeymooned—and meet younger versions of themselves.
William Sutherland, a Scottish marketing consultant in Surrey, and his Spanish wife, Luisa, a paper conservator, celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary in 2025 by returning to the city of Seville, Spain, renewing the bond they cemented when they married three decades ago. Back then, William aspired to be a novelist, not the jaded marketer he is now, and artist Luisa felt more upbeat. Are they the same people they were when they first fell in love? The question would, ordinarily, remain hypothetical, except that this is no ordinary holiday: “William Sutherland feels like an idiot right now. Or perhaps a madman. Because standing directly in front of him…is his wife, Luisa Sutherland. Yet not as she is today. He is staring…into the perfectly entrancing face and chestnut eyes of Luisa Sutherland, circa 1995.” Somehow, the modern-day couple meets their past selves, known as Will and Lu. Before long, other aspects of space and time begin to change—a guidebook that the couple owned in 1995 is brand new when Lu holds it, but “ages and crinkles” when William does. The older man ponders whether this encounter could change the present for the better; specifically, he confronts his long-held suspicion that Luisa once had an affair. Can William alter circumstances so that Luisa never feels the temptation to stray? Nostalgia is the key theme of this deftly written fantasy story, which asks whether true love truly lasts, or whether it’s only by viewing the past through the prism of wistful reminiscence that people can convince themselves that love survives the passage of time. The writing, in the vein of a satirical Anthony Burgess novel, wittily tackles familiar elements of time-travel love stories. But at nearly 400 pages in length, the story strains to squeeze new material out of the time-warp motif; as a result, William, Luisa, Will, and Lu start to feel like houseguests who’ve overstayed their welcome.
An elaborate entertainment that might have benefited from a tighter presentation.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781835743058
Page Count: -
Publisher: The Book Guild Ltd
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An engrossing, action-packed sequel with a compelling cast.
A woman must undergo fearsome trials to free the imprisoned Titans of Greek myth in Owen’s fantasy novel, the second in a series.
Advancing from minor office clerk in the Order of Thieves to Queen of the Underworld, Lyra Keres’ star should be rising. But thanks to Cronos, King of the Titans, she and her longtime friend and fellow thief Boone have been ensnared in a new challenge beneath the earth: Hot on the heels of winning the twisted Crucible Games, Lyra—who has recently been granted goddess powers—finds herself trapped in Tartarus. Separated from her beloved Hades, she must liberate the fearsome Titans from seven Locks to restore the cosmic balance. As Lyra progresses through the Locks engineered by the Gods—each as tricky and lethal as the last—the pressure mounts as the Titans repeatedly remind her, “You will be our savior.” Rhea, the wife of Cronos, reveals that Lyra began this quest “a hundred and fifty years ago,” adding further devastation to the task at hand; the knowledge is helpful, but also painful, as Lyra reflects, “Suddenly, I don’t want to know that it’s real. Because then I have to contemplate how many times I might have ended up in Tartarus already.” As she materializes in and out of time pockets, Lyra sees Hades’ troubled childhood unfold and struggles not to intervene to save the man she loves. In this second entry in the author’s Crucible series, following The Games Gods Play (2024), Lyra’s cynical quips continue to make her an engaging protagonist. Her inner monologues are balanced with hope, love, and longing for Hades as she meets various versions of him. While resilient, Owen’s heroine is also vulnerable (“Was I his pawn in more ways than I ever realized?”). Her introspection effectively contrasts with the simmering rage and restraint in Hades’ chapters. The supporting Titans are given more depth than the traditional myths allow, weaving a knotty family fabric for the reader to navigate alongside Lyra.
An engrossing, action-packed sequel with a compelling cast.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781649378538
Page Count: 500
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: tomorrow
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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