by Rowena R. Conrad ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 9, 2015
A great start to a detailed, loftily imagined new fantasy series.
In Conrad’s fantasy debut, a conspiracy to depose a heroic dynasty threatens the welfare of four interconnected realms.
Lady Elandra, an all-knowing Nehemra goddess, rules the majestic kingdom of Heteras. Her people use hidden, magical gateways to access other worlds, such as Reptilia and Axilien. As Anazar, a record-keeper, prepares for a vacation with his wife and daughter, he receives word that the highborn Mozeh has exiled Lady Elandra to Axilien and installed himself in her palace. In Reptilia, Anazar’s half sister, Niva, learns of the coup and that Mozeh wants to possess the Marked Children—the potential rulers of Heteras. Once Niva reunites with Anazar, the siblings take the decaying journal of Lady Avia, the realm’s first female geologist, through a hidden gateway to a world called Earth. There, they hope to find Avia’s descendants and a legendary jewel that’s part of the terazite Seed; when its pieces are combined, the Seed will have power over all life on Heteras. Meanwhile, in Germany’s Rhineland, 18-year-old Rebecca Madsen struggles to care for her younger brother, Erik, who suffers from unexplained fevers and exhaustion. Their mother is dead and their father is estranged, but they face greater challenges when they cross paths with visitors from a parallel world. Conrad’s sparkling debut will pin readers to their seats with its descriptively dense opening, featuring cultures reminiscent of those in Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) and Robert Silverberg’s Lord Valentine’s Castle (1980). Her gift for fantastic names is seemingly endless, as is her knack for weaving clever mythology, featuring elements such as nahai tea, which is “poison to the people who live beyond the lake.” The arcane system of travel between worlds employs lullabies, receding lakes, and the counting of stone steps—all of which contribute to the narrative’s overall dreamlike quality. After the laying of such fabulous groundwork, readers may be surprised to find that most of the story takes place on Earth. Near the cathartic ending, however, fresh questions arise to help jump-start the planned sequel.
A great start to a detailed, loftily imagined new fantasy series.Pub Date: March 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1460241431
Page Count: 344
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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