A gripping, fast-paced adventure that delivers passionate writing.
A determined Carian princess rails against a patriarchy in this debut historical novel.
At the impressionable age of 13, Princess Artemisia outruns her bewildered aides and climbs a tree to witness a great battle between the Carian and Labraundian forces in the early fifth century B.C.E. Her father, King Lygdamis, leads the Carians into combat, and at his side stands a fearless female warrior. Artemisia learns from her bodyguard, Myron, that the fighter is Persian. Persians permit women to enter into battle. Artemisia is consumed with envy, as no such allowance is given to the women of Caria. When the princess declares that she too wants a life of glory and struggle, she is told that as a girl she should know her place. From that moment on, she makes a vow to herself that she will become a satrap, a warrior ruler. When Emperor Darayavahu requests a hostage to take to Persia, Lygdamis flinches at the thought of losing his only son and instead negotiates for Artemisia to be taken in his place. So begins the princess’s journey into womanhood. Away from the confines of Caria, she develops an unblinking confidence that allows her to reason with the emperor himself. She also convinces Myron to train her in combat, in which she proves to be devastatingly skillful. Slowly, Artemisia develops the necessary talents to gain a foothold in a world where women are subservient to men. But is this sufficient for her to achieve her dream of replacing her father as king? Those familiar with ancient Greek history will know how the story unfolds. This is a riveting tale of a defiant young girl who dares to challenge patriarchal norms. Casagranda has an agility and fluidity to his writing that are particularly evident when describing combat: “Artemisia realized that her Milesian opponent was as surprised by the stumble as she was. Instead of fighting it, she moved through it, ducking down and then thrusting the tip of the blade up. It found the soft underside of the Ionian’s chin.” The urgency, rhythm, and motion of battle are captured vividly. But on occasion, the author is prone to repetition. For example, he often describes events occurring in the heroine’s peripheral vision: “A person walked into Artemisia’s peripheral view.” This isn’t off-puttingly irritating but perhaps indicative of an unseasoned writer leaning on favored words or phrases. The novel is dedicated to “all the victims of patriarchy,” and although it succeeds in depicting men as blundering and bloodthirsty rulers, there is a nagging doubt as to whether a leader such as the masterful Darayavahu would unravel emotionally and admit his failings: “You see me as all-powerful, but I’m weak….You’d think that” having an empire “would make me like a God. But it makes me a slave to one thousand masters.” Still, despite some minor weaknesses, Casagranda’s story is a bona fide page-turner that should have readers rooting for the tenacious Artemisia from beginning to end.
A gripping, fast-paced adventure that delivers passionate writing.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2018
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 417
Publisher: Sekhmet Liminal Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...
Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.
Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
