Thoroughly entertaining.
Their mother’s death and their father’s struggle to find work have taken a toll on the four Breck sisters: Annagail, the eldest, has left school for a factory job; young Lilet and Mimmi endure day care; and would-be writer Isaveth, following a recipe in the Book of Common Magic, has begun baking spell-tablets to sell on the street.
In Tarreton, nobles live in luxury while the poor live in grinding, Dickensian poverty. As Moshites, a religious minority, the Brecks are isolated and burdened by discrimination. When Papa is arrested, unjustly accused of murdering the governor of Tarreton College, Isaveth vows to save him. Quiz, a mysterious boy who’s befriended her (like her, he’s a fan of the broadcast “talkie-play” Auradia Champion, Lady Justice of Listerbroke), offers much-needed help. Their investigations lead them first to the college, with its plethora of witnesses and possible suspects, then to the Workers’ Club, an illegal underground organization dedicated to improving the lives of Tarreton’s downtrodden. Isaveth and her sisters are an appealing bunch, and the plot’s twists and turns keep readers enjoyably perplexed. The setting, with its nostalgia-infused, late-Victorian vibe, is to fantasy what steampunk is to science fiction—and great fun. This alternate world’s infrastructure relies on magic-based technology. Powerful Sagery enables the nobility’s luxurious lifestyle, but for commoners, permission to use common magic is a hard-won right, by no means universal.
Thoroughly entertaining. (Fantasy.10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3771-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Breathless adventures in richly imagined settings—an entrancing sequel.
A teenager’s mission to help distressed magical creatures takes her into dangerous places and deadly situations in this folk tale–infused sequel to Once There Was (2023).
The stakes rise considerably this time around: Over the course of encounters with eldritch supernatural beings and a reclusive Persian cousin of (as it turns out) uncertain reliability, Marjan Dastani, now 16, learns that a legendary bird that brings stories to the world is about to be reborn. As a hatchling, it will be vulnerable to foes—notably the Fells, a ruthless organization of magical animal traffickers that is, to Marjan’s deep disgust, her main employer. Interspersing his chapters with fragmentary folk tales featuring orphans, quests, monsters, the titular bird, and hints of profound truths, Monsef sends his rousingly intense and sometimes difficult protagonist all over the map, from Berkeley to Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, and remotest Finland. Hoping to find and protect the Bird, Marjan embarks on a headlong series of tests, betrayals, reversals, revelations, and confrontations. Better yet, along with dishing up a diverse human cast linked by refreshingly nuanced relationships, the author endows the supernatural being with subtle and surprising natures, abilities, and agendas. “The fae are fickle,” says one character. “One day they sing you the sweetest song. The next day they eat your cat.” Even jaded fantasy readers won’t be able to help but be beguiled.
Breathless adventures in richly imagined settings—an entrancing sequel. (source notes) (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781665928533
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A half-baked jumble of poorly connected themes, incidents, and tropes.
Eleven-year-old Georgie sets out to the rescue after seeing his dad snatched into thin air by a hideous figure.
In a confusing debut that reads like a first draft, the kidnapping impels the young slingshot expert to go from doggedly enduring vicious bullying at school to intrepidly plunging after his father through a portal to Scatterplot, an otherworldly realm where the memories of everyone in New York are uploaded by omnilingual Scribes. Classmates Apurva Aluwhalia (who’s cued South Asian) and Roscoe Harris (who reads Black and is confined to a role that’s largely limited to comic relief), each motivated by their own concerns, follow white-presenting Georgie on his adventure. In Scatterplot, they must remain alert for the “tribe” of “bad people” called Altercockers, formed by the exiled Rollie D. Meanwhile, Flint Eldritch, the menacing figure who was responsible for Georgie’s father’s disappearance, is bent on using the Aetherquill, a magical pen that can rewrite reality in unpredictable ways, to replace all those recorded memories with fake ones. In a story that’s marred by stilted dialogue, flat characterization, and awkward turns of phrase, Georgie and his friends, along with Scatterplot siblings Edie and Ore, embark on a quest to save both his father and the entire realm. The puss-oozing, misshapen villain Flint, crawling with bugs, does at least provide a memorably lurid element of horror. The novel ends with an abrupt cliffhanger.
A half-baked jumble of poorly connected themes, incidents, and tropes. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9798886453164
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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