Readers will be guessing until the end in this successful friendship-filled adventure.
In a sleepy town 50 miles south of London, a young boy and his sister travel through time to find their lost dog in this debut novel.
When her beloved dog, Buddy, goes missing, a young girl named Addy sets off looking for him across her neighbor’s garden. While searching, Addy sees Buddy slip through a passageway created by a mockingbird. Before she can retrieve him, the passage closes up, leaving behind a gold coin. When she tells her parents what she saw, they think she’s covering up her theft of the coin from their neighbor Alan Westing, an antiques collector and renowned physicist. Addy’s parents decide she must work off her misconduct by spending the summer tending his castle gardens while her brother Colin supervises. As the summer progresses, mysterious happenings around the castle lead Colin to believe Addy’s original story, and the two set off to reopen the portal. The cast of characters snowballs as the story moves through different dimensions. It’s in these time jumps that the plot begins to muddle. In Colin and Addy’s reality, Alan Westing’s academic research on string theory draws interest from an unnamed villain who will stop at nothing to get his hands on Westing’s findings. This tangent takes on a pedantic tone that expounds upon scientific theories about time travel, removing the reader from the central narrative. Additionally, uninspired place names (e.g., Caves of Never) and onomatopoeia-heavy action sequences detract from an otherwise well-conceived fantasy world with lovable characters, some of whom are brought to life with black-and-white illustrations. As the siblings explore the far corners of an alternate world, the big reveal of the titular gatekeeper is as satisfying as the interplay of box office–level thrills and tender character study.
Readers will be guessing until the end in this successful friendship-filled adventure.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62015-437-3
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Booktrope Editions
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
A truly epic tome that satisfyingly stokes the brilliant blaze kindled by its predecessors.
The war between Spell Walkers and Blood Casters reaches its thrilling conclusion as election day looms.
Tensions between twins-turned-enemies Brighton and Emil—the so-called Infinity Kings—are at an all-time high, and each is following his own ideas of what it means to be a hero. Whereas Brighton wants his powers (and influencer fame) to grow, Emil wants to bind his powers forever and restart his life. Meanwhile, Maribelle seeks a way to revive her late boyfriend while she’s simultaneously developing confusing feelings for Halo Knight Tala. Caught in his own love triangle and vying for Emil’s favor, Ness plots revenge on his political mastermind father. In each of the major plot strands, plans quickly go up in smoke with surprises and deception at every turn—and an astonishingly high body count. Will their alternate New York ever really see peace? This trilogy closer lightly recaps the previous entries while propelling the complex, action-packed plot at a phoenix’s soaring pace. Emotions run high throughout, including sizzling sexual tension that arises even in the most unexpected moments. Although the book is heavy on explanation, Silvera expertly juggles the four alternating first-person narrators while seamlessly tying up all the loose ends. The moral ambiguity of the mostly brown-skinned and/or queer cast makes for fascinating character development, and the magical parallels to contemporary political situations are chilling.
A truly epic tome that satisfyingly stokes the brilliant blaze kindled by its predecessors. (the world of Gleamcraft, dramatis personae) (Fantasy. 12-adult)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780062882363
Page Count: 752
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
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