An imaginative and entertaining novel about life, death, and mother-daughter relationships.
The Grim Reaper’s daughter must save her friend from eternal damnation in Paisley’s comic debut novel.
Trixie D’Vita’s mother is death—literally. As in, the Grim Reaper. “She was a red-headed, black-corseted, stiletto-wearing force of nature,” Trixie reports with a mix of awe and annoyance. “And she casually moved through time and space.” Trixie, who was raised primarily by her “uncle,” former drag queen Aunt Harry, isn’t interested in joining the family business. Instead, the 22-year-old works as a waitress at Aunt Harry’s popular Seattle bar, Quandors, where witches, zombies, vampires, and the tourists who want to mingle with monsters enjoy all manner of alcohol- and blood-based cocktails. When agents from the Angel Investigative Bureau show up asking for her mother’s whereabouts, Trixie finds herself caught up in a scandal involving a potentially rigged game show. To the Wheel features newly departed souls winning desirable next lives…or being cast into the pits of Hell. Trixie doesn’t want to get involved—her relationship with her mother is complex—until her best friend, Zuzi Gonzales, dies suddenly and ends up as a contestant on the show. Can Trixie save her friend from a horrible afterlife, even if it means descending into Hell itself…and, even worse, teaming up with her mother? Paisley brings a great deal of humor and invention to her premise. Here, a demon Trixie meets in Hell describes how torture has been revolutionized through Applied Health Sciences: “We’re all about creative, personalized Hellscapes. Our goal is producing well-rounded, rehabbed souls able to move on to their next lifetimes. By finding each soul’s unique triggers, we break them down and open them up so they can get back on the Wheel of Life.” Paisley takes her characters seriously, even when she places them in screwball situations, which makes for an unexpectedly moving reading experience. The mixture of surreal comedy, mythology, and memorable characters makes for a winning combination that will surely have fans eagerly awaiting a sequel.
An imaginative and entertaining novel about life, death, and mother-daughter relationships.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9798989277018
Page Count: 229
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
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