A thrilling combination of historical acuity and dramatic artfulness.
In this debut novel set in the Middle East during World War I, a reporter joins a dangerous military expedition across the Desert Sea.
Francis Marion Jäger—his friends call him Mare—is an American journalist working for a London newspaper in the Middle East, covering the Great War. While in Egypt, he makes the acquaintance of Benjamin Wright, a young British lieutenant about to embark with his battalion for Rafah. Without a new assignment, and so essentially out of work, Mare agrees to accompany him, if only reluctantly. Weary of war, the reporter is also shiftlessly unsure what else to do. He meets Brig. Gen. Clement Leslie Smith, who quickly learns Mare works as a spy for Ms. Belle, “the only commissioned woman in the theater,” and that he speaks Arabic fluently. Impressed, Smith orders Mare to join a reconnaissance mission in search of a strategically sound base of operations north of Damascus. Mare is also charged with showing the way to Masyaf, a Syrian area long rumored as cursed, the feared redoubt of Sinan, a mighty warrior who became known as a kind of god of assassins, an intriguing story rivetingly recounted by King. While in transit, Mare encounters his friend Hasan ibn Faraj, once a Bedouin prince and now a soldier and tracker. Hasan entrusts Mare with a scroll and dagger that purportedly belonged to the famed Saladin, the first sultan of Egypt and Syria, artifacts of extraordinary value that would place any possessor in grave peril. The author poignantly depicts a theater of war comparatively neglected by historians and novelists and just as grimly violent as its counterparts: “A strange land, a stranger war. Most have no idea why they are killing or even whom they are killing. Ours is a train full of soldiers lost to humanity, shell-shocked, tired, sent off to a place to kill or die.” In this first installment of a series, King draws from the actual journals of Francis Marion Jäger— beautiful, hand-drawn illustrations from them are included—and the entire tale is narrated from his first-person perspective. This gripping story vividly brings to life a Middle East transformed by the cataclysms of modernity as well as the spirit of its ancient form.
A thrilling combination of historical acuity and dramatic artfulness.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 158
Publisher: Pyram King LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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