An addictive adventure with a familiar framework.
In this YA medieval fantasy, a noble family enjoys peacetime pursuits until history comes knocking.
On the world of Pentavia, in the realm of Treland, the city of Arwin’s Gate is about to host the largest tournament in a decade. Lady Isolda of House Hornbolt fears that it may be a turning point in the lives of three of her children. Terric, almost 13 years old, is destined by custom to join the priesthood—despite his fondness for swordplay. Oriana, 16, is ready for marriage to a noble, possibly even Prince Rixin. Marcus, 18 and the oldest of Isolda and Lord Garrion’s children, will be competing in the tournament against the undefeated prince and others, which could cost him his life. As if Isolda isn’t preoccupied enough, she receives a note from Axion Tobias Crane, Terric’s tutor. She leaves Vulture Keep and secretly meets him at the Razortooth Tavern. Within a sinkhole in the floor, he reveals to her “a yellowed corpse dressed in golden armor.” This is the body of Arwin, the one true God. Does this misplaced holy artifact have anything to do with the rot that House Hornbolt has been suffering since the end of the Wizard’s War almost 20 years ago? In this epic fantasy, Hauge (Riddle of Regicide, 2014) and Smoak (The Truth in My Lies, 2018, etc.) excel at rotating through their cast, using third-person chunks to make several small dramas succeed. While Oriana fears that Prince Rixin won’t like her compared with Princess Navya, Terric plans to run away to the northern Huntlands before priesthood descends. Structurally, the narrative is reminiscent of A Game of Thrones, but with less cynicism and brutality. Delightful surprises lurk around most corners, including the thief Bastian (and his squirrel, Nut), who steals Oriana’s heart. In this first volume of a series, the authors whet fan curiosity for distant locales like Arwood Forest and the Isles of Invention. A savage cliffhanger brings everything into sharper focus for the sequel.
An addictive adventure with a familiar framework.Pub Date: April 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-985876-05-7
Page Count: 450
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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