In time for Halloween, Prince Michael of Greece (Sultana, 1983) presents the dilettantish findings of his spirit-hunting. As a storyteller, Prince Michael is frankly out of his league, at least when compared to such writers as M.R. James and Sheridan LeFanu, or even such true believers as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Accompanied by a photographer friend (whose work provides an atmospheric backdrop for the narrative), Prince Michael does some amateur psychic research in a stately home in England, a castle in Spain, a Russian palace, a chÉteau in France, and a manor in Ireland, among other ostensibly ghostly sites. While he hears tales of transparent women, lost treasures, evil presences, and things going bump in the night, the paranormal vibrations he invariably picks up tell different stories. Unfortunately, those stories—all told in the first person by female spirits, with Prince Michael as the medium/amanuensis—usually involving forbidden love affairs, smack of the historical romance with traces of New Age religiosity. The most eminent of these narrators is Czarina Maria Feodorovna, the dyspeptic daughter-in-law of Catherine the Great, whose spirit hovers about the restored Palace of Pavlovsk, brooding over her assassinated husband. Most of the spirits Prince Michael contacts are noblewomen, such as the sadistic medieval figure who inhabited the sinister ChÉteau de Niedzica, or the Irish Lady Claire of Doneraile Court. All the stories fall flat after the eerie backdrop is parted. Without a trace of irony, the author observes, ``Of course ghosts are real, but those who believe in them too passionately, and imagine they sense their presence everywhere end up by creating them from scratch.'' Prince Michael quickly spoils the spooky atmosphere with genre novel scenarios and New Age effects. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1996
ISBN: 0-393-03952-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An adventurous fantasy romp only for the die-hard fan.
A mysterious woodsman joins forces with an earnest princess to stop a plot that could ruin both of their kingdoms in this fantasy romance.
Princess Sorcha keeps a close eye on her loved ones, constantly living in fear that her brother and adopted sisters will be taken away from her. When she uncovers a plan to murder her brother and steal his queen, Sorcha throws herself (quite literally) into ruining the enemy’s coldhearted scheme. In the fray, she is taken prisoner to be used as leverage. Her freedom comes at the hands of a man known only as the Woodsman. A Robin Hood–esque hero, he leads a secret rebellion to overthrow the corrupt family in power in his woodland country. With Sorcha’s ability to harness fire and the Woodsman’s talent for communing with nature, they realize their combined magical strength is the key to protecting those they love. Sorcha’s close circle of friends and family rely heavily on previously established relationships from prior books, and the setup is a direct relation to past events. Newcomers to Sparks’ (Eight Simple Rules for Dating a Dragon, 2018, etc.) Embraced by Magic series will undoubtedly be lost when attempting to understand character connections and references to previous skirmishes and battles. The relationship between the hero and heroine is background noise to the tangled web of political machinations by cartoonish villains, but the inventive setting and depth of worldbuilding prevent this from feeling too much like a paint-by-numbers, cookie-cutter fantasy romance. But while Sparks’ crafting of distinct kingdoms and fantasy races is the strongest part of the series, this installment carries on the earlier tradition of middling, glacially slow romances.
An adventurous fantasy romp only for the die-hard fan.Pub Date: March 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3004-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An underwhelming novel that often gets too heavy-handed with its theme.
Three witches attempt to magically alter their futures at the end of the 19th century in this historical fantasy novel.
The third entry in Morgan’s (The Witch’s Kind, 2019, etc.) thematically connected series of witch novels centers on two descendants of real-life Salem witch Bridget Byshop who wage magical war over the fate of a headstrong teenager. Living in New York City in 1890, distant cousins Harriet and Frances trace their ancestry back to Bridget’s two daughters. Frances’ ancestor inherited Bridget’s "maleficia," a book of black magic, which would-be socialite Frances intends to use to force her stepdaughter, Annis, into a loveless union with a British marquess to secure her own place in New York society. Harriet has devoted her life and craft to helping women in need, so when she overhears Frances’ plans for Annis—who is also Harriet’s great-niece and one of Bridget’s descendants—she follows them to England. Women’s inability to control their own destinies is clearly a theme here, but the novel’s heavy-handed treatment makes this message more burdensome than enlightening. When she realizes that a forced marriage is set to shatter her dream of breeding her own line of racehorses, Annis melodramatically laments that she is “for sale, like a filly at the horse market.” Morgan's failure to differentiate between voices—conversations between Annis and Frances are nearly indistinguishable from those between the marquess and his mother in both subject matter and vocabulary—makes it difficult for the reader to connect with the characters’ plights, even at the novel’s climax, as does a jarring opening that quickly alternates between point-of-view characters and pauses several times for lengthy backstory. For all of Frances’ dealings in darkness, an unnecessary attempted rape scene caused by black magic provides the story’s only true moment of suspense.
An underwhelming novel that often gets too heavy-handed with its theme.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-41950-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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