Zoë’s an appealing if occasionally irritating protagonist, and the plot mostly works despite the overcomplicated backdrop: a...
In the first of an urban fantasy series, an astro-traveling private investigator, whose psychic mother is landlady to a witch and two gay ghosts, stalks an invisible murderer.
After being raped, stabbed and left for dead, Zoë Martinique discovered that her spirit can leave her body—so she makes a living as a p.i., a Traveler invisibly snooping on illicit deeds and conversations. She’s also incorrigibly curious, and one night when on a job, she witnesses a murder by a sinister figure she thinks of as Trench-Coat. The latter steals his victim’s soul; worse, he notices Zoë, grabs her—and threatens to steal her soul amid irresistible promises of sexual ecstasy! Zoë snaps back into her body just in time, but the contact has changed her: She can now physically manifest while Traveling. She learns that the dead man’s boss, Kobe Hirokumi, holds a powerful McGuffin belonging to shady televangelist Teddy Rollins, who sent Trench-Coat to get it back. But while eavesdropping on a conversation between Hirokumi and gorgeous detective Daniel Frasier—it’s lust at first sight—Zoë barely avoids a trap set by Hirokumi’s faceless seer. Despite tending to blurt things audibly while out of body and invisible, Zoë doggedly continues to investigate; clearly the bad guys know much more about the non-physical realms than Zoë. Complications ensue on several levels, as our heroine—still lusting and impulsive—finds that nothing is what it seems.
Zoë’s an appealing if occasionally irritating protagonist, and the plot mostly works despite the overcomplicated backdrop: a worthwhile debut that bodes well for disembodied adventures to come.Pub Date: June 5, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-441-01497-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2007
A love letter to imagination, adventure, the written word, and the power of many kinds of love.
An independent young girl finds a blue door in a field and glimpses another world, nudging her onto a path of discovery, destiny, empowerment, and love.
Set at the turn of the 20th century, Harrow's debut novel centers on January Scaller, who grows up under the watchful eye of the wealthy Cornelius Locke, who employs her father, Julian, to travel the globe in search of odd objects and valuable treasures to pad his collection, housed in a sprawling Vermont mansion. January appears to have a charmed childhood but is stifled by the high-society old boy’s club of Mr. Locke and his friends, who treat her as a curiosity—a mixed-race girl with a precocious streak, forced into elaborate outfits and docile behavior for the annual society gatherings. When she's 17, her father seemingly disappears, and January finds a book that will change her life forever. With her motley crew of allies—Samuel, the grocer’s son; Jane, the Kenyan woman sent by Julian to be January’s companion; and Bad, her faithful dog—January embarks on an adventure that will lead her to discover secrets about Mr. Locke, the world and its hidden doorways, and her own family. Harrow employs the image of the door (“Sometimes I feel there are doors lurking in the creases of every sentence, with periods for knobs and verbs for hinges”) as well as the metaphor (a “geometry of absence”) to great effect. Similes and vivid imagery adorn nearly every page like glittering garlands. While some stereotypes are present, such as the depiction of East African women as pantherlike, the book has a diverse cast of characters and a strong woman lead. This portal fantasy doesn’t shy away from racism, classism, and sexism, which helps it succeed as an interesting story.
A love letter to imagination, adventure, the written word, and the power of many kinds of love.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-42199-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Redhook/Orbit
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Although this sequel doesn’t break new ground, it will appeal strongly to fans of the first book.
More steampunk adventures of a samurai prognosticator, his clockwork octopus, and his human lovers.
Five years after her charming debut novel, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (2015), Pulley brings back the main characters for another scramble through the dangers and consequences of clairvoyance. Readers of the first book already know the big reveal: that Keita Mori—the eponymous London watchmaker—has an unusual memory that works both backward and forward. (Readers new to the series should put this book down and start with Watchmaker.) This time Pulley sets the action principally in Japan, where Mori; Thaniel Steepleton, a British translator and diplomat; Grace Carrow Matsumoto, a physicist; and Takiko Pepperharrow, a Kabuki actress and baroness, are working together to foil a samurai’s power grab and turn away a Russian invasion. At least, that’s what Mori’s doing; the others are rushing blindly down paths he’s laid out for them, which may or may not get them where he wants them to go. But if Mori knows what’s coming and what steps they can take to change the future, why doesn’t he just tell them what to do? The answer is half satisfying (because, as in any complicated relationship, communication isn’t always easy; because the characters have wills of their own and might not obey) and half irritating (because if he did, there wouldn’t be much of a story). Pulley’s witty writing and enthusiastically deployed steampunk motifs—clockwork, owls, a mechanical pet, Tesla-inspired electrical drama—enliven a plot that drags in the middle before rushing toward its explosive end. Perhaps more interesting than the plot are the relationships. The characters revolve through a complex pattern of marriages of passion and convenience, sometimes across and sometimes within genders and cultures, punctuated by jealousy and interesting questions about trust.
Although this sequel doesn’t break new ground, it will appeal strongly to fans of the first book.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63557-330-5
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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