A fine fantasy/adventure debut with some serious hiccups.
In Diamantopoulos’ fantasy/adventure, an unlikely group of adventurers—a young soldier, an old scholar/wizard and a young woman with unknown powers—race to find a mad wizard and stop a war.
When we first meet him, Lt. Mordecai faces an imperial arbiter who demands to know the truth behind Mordecai’s past adventures with the young heiress Amethyst and the scholar Damascus. His story—occasionally interrupted by the arbiter—begins when he’s called to protect a summit between the kingdoms, a summit meant to ensure peace in the face of continued drought and potential famine. When Amethyst survives an assassination attempt, Mordecai and Damascus bring Amethyst to a safe haven, which happens to be the site of ruins left by the land’s previous inhabitants: legendary beings who were able to control magic but who fled this world. The location proves to be less than safe for Amethyst’s group; a demonic warrior wearing magical armor attacks them. This prompts the group to begin a dual-purpose quest: Track down the mad wizard and find the magical “cornerstone” that might help prevent the war. As many fantasy classics do, Diamantopoulos’ debut opens with a map; he’s not afraid to use such tropes of fantasy, from the scholar/wizard to the sanity-eroding magical artifact to the vague medievalism of kings and broadswords. Though not always original, this fantasy keeps the action humming with a series of quests and obstacles. Occasional grammatical glitches (“peak” for “peek”), modern-sounding language (“an insignificant cog in a great engine,” “field trip”) and clichés (skipped heartbeats, etc.) clutter the text. The book ends with a revelation that, while surprising, lacks punch.
A fine fantasy/adventure debut with some serious hiccups.Pub Date: May 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615838236
Page Count: 434
Publisher: Eastern Estate Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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