A wonderfully weird novel about powerful women, inheritance, and desire.
Fowler Island seems like a quaint getaway off the coast of Ohio in Lake Erie, but something sinister lurks beneath its surface—literally.
Henrietta Volt, 24, hasn’t been back to her childhood home in a decade when Beatrice Bethany, her older half sister, calls in the year 2000 with the news that their father, James, has died and she must return to the island for the funeral. Henrie loved growing up as an island kid alongside B.B., but her memories are fuzzy, especially the circumstances under which she left at age 14 with her mother, Carrie, while B.B. stayed behind with their father. When Henrie and Carrie return for the funeral, their memories, and a whole lot more, take shape, revealing secrets that go back generations. This book has all the elements you could want in a thriller—missing women, a mysterious mansion, monsters, ghosts, and, at its center, a pair of sisters as unsettling as the Blackwoods of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Moulton juggles these pieces well as she moves the story between 2000 and 1989, when the sisters were teenagers. She delivers many delicious moments of suspense and sheer terror. The scope is so ambitious, though, that the story can feel convoluted in some places, while it's oddly thin in others. The island, including the family house and the quarry where some pivotal action takes place, is described in minute detail many times over, while certain subplots remain unexplored. Some aspects of the Fowler and Volt family mythology are revisited to the point of redundancy, while others go unaddressed. Moulton builds a fascinating world but never quite establishes its rules. Still, each point-of-view character who narrates the story—Henrie, B.B., Carrie, and Sonia, the island archivist and a family friend of sorts—pulls off her piece to tell an engrossing tale.
A wonderfully weird novel about powerful women, inheritance, and desire.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-374-53832-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Enjoyable for Buffy fans and general paranormal enthusiasts.
Sunnydale has a new slayer.
Set in the world of TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this first installment in a new series focuses on a new generation. Frankie Rosenberg’s mom is the powerful witch Willow, friend to famed slayer Buffy. Frankie’s own minimal powers are mostly used for ecological purposes until there’s an explosion at a slayers’ meeting, leading Frankie to become the first ever slayer-witch. A slayer needs her crew of Scoobies, and under the guidance of Watcher Spike, Frankie is assisted by Hailey, half sister of missing slayer Vi; werewolf lacrosse player Jake; and Sigmund, a Sage demon. Frankie may be new to the gig, but she has to learn quickly because there’s a new Big Bad in Sunnydale who is out for blood. The book provides enough information for patient newcomers to the Buffyverse to enjoy the story, but it will be most appealing to those with at least some background knowledge who will appreciate the references. Though the pacing is inconsistent, exciting action scenes abound, and the villain is intriguing and delightfully vicious. The characters’ banter and observations are often cheeky and funny but sometimes fall flat, as when they are based on gender stereotypes. The abrupt ending satisfyingly wraps up some plots, but there are plenty left open for future entries. Most characters are White; Hailey’s mom was Saulteaux First Nations, and Sigmund is Black.
Enjoyable for Buffy fans and general paranormal enthusiasts. (Paranormal. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-368-07502-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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