A stunning setting and bewitching premise make this book appealing, but Brackston’s execution falls short of its mark.
Grief, magic and the ancient world collide in Brackston’s (The Midnight Witch, 2014, etc.) fourth novel.
Still grieving the unexpected death of her husband, artist Tilda Fordwells moves into the remote cottage on a Welsh lake they had intended to share. But as Tilda becomes the center of a series of paranormal events, she soon realizes her pull to the area is anything but accidental. Equally unsettling are the curious new effect Tilda seems to have on electricity and the terrifying visions she's been having since settling into the cottage. Even as Tilda seeks to understand the bizarre new powers she possesses, she's blindsided by her attraction to Dylan, an archaeological diver hired to explore the ancient crannog that once dominated the lake. Alternating smoothly with the modern storyline is the tale of Seren Arianaidd, a 10th-century shaman charged with protecting Prince Brynach, the handsome royal who rules from the crannog on the lake. As the two stories unfold, the reader learns what ancient act of love and revenge ties the two women together—and what deadly, dark power has awoken from the dark waters of the lake. The story has moments of glory, but Brackston’s writing, so solid in earlier books, vacillates unpredictably between evocative and uninventive. Her use of description also founders: A full page is dedicated to detailing the interior contents of a hut, and three various men are described as “wiry” in the first hundred pages. And while the reader may thrill to the idea of both a contemporary and a historical romantic storyline, the romance between Prince Brynach and seer Seren feels disappointingly devoid of foundation, chemistry and heart. It may be only the die-hard fans of Brackston’s particular blend of history and fantasy that are able to overlook such missed opportunities.
A stunning setting and bewitching premise make this book appealing, but Brackston’s execution falls short of its mark.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-02879-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Even if you have Jackie Kennedy—and this is a particularly sensitive and nuanced portrait of her—you still have to have a...
A debut novelist finds that his book has been acquired by Jackie O.
Rowley (Lily and the Octopus, 2016) likes a shot of fantasy with his fiction—last time it was a malignant sea creature attached to the head of a dachshund, this time it's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at her day job. A young gay writer named James Smale is sent by his agent to Doubleday to take a meeting about his book, with no advance warning that the editor who wants to acquire his manuscript is the former first lady. As this novel is already on its way to the screen, one can only hope that the first few scenes come off better on film than they do on paper—here, the brio of the premise is almost buried under the narrator's disbelief and awkwardness and flat-footed jokes, first in the meeting with Jackie, then when he goes home to share the news with his lover, Daniel. James' novel, The Quarantine, deals with a troubled mother-son relationship; as Jackie suspects, it has autobiographical roots. But James' real mother is extremely unhappy with being written about, and the two are all but estranged. Mrs. Onassis insists, in her role as editor, that he go home and deal with this, because he won't be able to fix the ending of his book until he does. So he does go home, and long-kept family secrets are spilled, and everyone gets very upset. As a result, he apparently fixes The Quarantine, though as much can't be said for The Editor.
Even if you have Jackie Kennedy—and this is a particularly sensitive and nuanced portrait of her—you still have to have a plot.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-53796-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
An engrossing look at a monster.
A deeply researched novel about Hitler’s rise to power, co-authored by Stern, a former federal judge, and Winter, a novelist (Island Bluffs, 2015. etc.).
In a German army hospital in 1918, two soldiers meet. One, the narrator, has lost all memory of his past, even his identity, so a doctor assigns him the name of a dead soldier, Friedrich Richard. Richard shows kindness to the man suffering from hysterical blindness in the bed next to him. The blind man calls himself Wolf, but his real name is Adolf Hitler. They form a strong friendship, and Richard later follows Hitler into the Nazi Party. Richard is a not-entirely-sympathetic narrator who stands 6-foot-7 and “doesn’t shy away from a fight,” willingly bashing heads to defend his friend. But he shies away from talking about his past, especially when he learns he’s inadvertently been given the name of “a dead Jew.” Meanwhile, Hitler “demanded total loyalty, but he also gave it…even to friends who disappointed him.” “Friedrich,” he says, “you must stay close to me. Always. You are the only one I really trust.” Even knowing that Richard defended a bearded Jew against three thugs, Hitler promotes him to SS Obergruppenführer. “Our Friedrich is well known for his tender heart,” he says. The fictional narrator proves a great tool to show Hitler up close, based on the authors’ research. For example, historians often portray Hitler as pathologically afraid of women. Richard tells a woman that “Hitler’s romance is with Germany,” not with fräuleins, but Hitler is attracted to young women and girls, including his niece Geli, who commits suicide after ol’ Uncle Adolf leaves her for another woman. In 1934, Richard visits a dying man in Dachau but is long since hopelessly ensnared in the Nazi juggernaut. As the novel ends, the horrors are only beginning.
An engrossing look at a monster.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5107-5108-8
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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