Ambitious, entertaining start to a sexy YA paranormal adventure series.
In this debut fantasy novel, after family tragedy, college-age Sage Frankle discovers her supernatural capabilities and bloodline legacy.
Sage stands numb in front of a casket. She recently lost her mom to cancer, and now her stepfather’s friend David has died of unexpected heart failure. Her stepfather, off the wagon and wild with grief, tries to strangle her, and Sage’s world goes black. Before she knows it, her stepfather is in an alcohol treatment center, and she has put her college classes on hold to live with her aunt Ilia at the latter’s inn in another part of Vermont. Sage goes for counseling but is too depressed, too scared to delve deep. She doesn’t remember what happened with David, but she seems to read others’ thoughts and has been having odd dreams. Her cousin Lilly, who had left for a trip around the time of David’s demise, returns home, drawing to the surface the dark energy lurking throughout the inn. Sage either sees or imagines Lilly in bondage sex with the local “Playboy Chef,” who is then weakened by a mystery illness. Handsome, angelic Lucien, whom Lilly treats as her master, arrives on the scene, as do Tate, a sweet, nerdy mythology major and son of the ailing chef, and Desden, Sage’s gay tattoo artist best friend from home. As Sage’s strange behavior escalates, Ilia finally explains all, and the group bands together to deal with the girls’ powers and the “portal” gateway of the inn. To launch this planned series of tales focused on these alluring young women, debut author Hampton sets up a diverse cast of players and a solid, believable back story that draws from Jewish folklore. Some of the characters, such as a crime writer who’s a frequent guest at the inn, are rather awkwardly introduced, perhaps to be further developed in future installments. Overall, however, Hampton conjures a heady blend of eroticism, fantasy, humor and coming-of-age angst that should appeal to both Twilight and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans.
Ambitious, entertaining start to a sexy YA paranormal adventure series.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-0615964560
Page Count: 360
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.
A very funny novel about the survivor of a childhood trauma.
At 29, Eleanor Oliphant has built an utterly solitary life that almost works. During the week, she toils in an office—don’t inquire further; in almost eight years no one has—and from Friday to Monday she makes the time go by with pizza and booze. Enlivening this spare existence is a constant inner monologue that is cranky, hilarious, deadpan, and irresistible. Eleanor Oliphant has something to say about everything. Riding the train, she comments on the automated announcements: “I wondered at whom these pearls of wisdom were aimed; some passing extraterrestrial, perhaps, or a yak herder from Ulan Bator who had trekked across the steppes, sailed the North Sea, and found himself on the Glasgow-Edinburgh service with literally no prior experience of mechanized transport to call upon.” Eleanor herself might as well be from Ulan Bator—she’s never had a manicure or a haircut, worn high heels, had anyone visit her apartment, or even had a friend. After a mysterious event in her childhood that left half her face badly scarred, she was raised in foster care, spent her college years in an abusive relationship, and is now, as the title states, perfectly fine. Her extreme social awkwardness has made her the butt of nasty jokes among her colleagues, which don’t seem to bother her much, though one notices she is stockpiling painkillers and becoming increasingly obsessed with an unrealistic crush on a local musician. Eleanor’s life begins to change when Raymond, a goofy guy from the IT department, takes her for a potential friend, not a freak of nature. As if he were luring a feral animal from its hiding place with a bit of cheese, he gradually brings Eleanor out of her shell. Then it turns out that shell was serving a purpose.
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2068-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.
In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice.
Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her family—her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—forcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader’s attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is.
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-44818-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
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