A seriously fun concoction of tragedy and melodrama.
In this second book of Wolf’s (Bring Me Their Hearts, 2018, etc.) fantasy/romance series, a spirited, undead teen suffers the consequences of earlier perfidy.
Nineteen-year-old Zera has revealed her true form. She’s “Heartless”—an unkillable human puppet in thrall to a witch. Her task was to take Prince Lucien of Cavanos’ heart, but instead, she fell in love with him; saving him, yes, but only after deceiving and betraying him. Now that she’s failed in her mission, Zera is expecting death when her witch severs the connection between them. Instead, she finds herself beholden to a new mistress—Lucien’s sister, Princess Varia, who’s returned from the dead and is determined to enforce a peace between humans and witches. Varia seeks the Bone Tree, a peripatetic talisman through which she will command an army of valkerax (gargantuan wyrms). To find the Bone Tree, Zera—on Varia’s behalf—must find out its location from a half-crazed valkerax. Yet if she does, what further pain may befall Lucien? Zera resolves to keep the prince safe, so no matter the cost to herself, she holds him at a distance. Despite her duplicity, Lucien still has feelings for her. If she does Varia’s bidding, Zera will be made whole again—and is any love worth more than that? After the cliffhanger at the end of the last installment, Wolf resumes her story with aplomb in a continuation that’s both faithful to the first novel yet also a clear progression. The plot is twisty but not contrived, and the subject matter, though emotionally heavy, never feels as such, as it’s lightened by Zera’s confident humor and breezy, present-tense narration. She’s a strong protagonist who’s at once willful and selfless and buoyed by an irrepressible bent for badinage. Wolf introduces some new characters in this book, and they take delight in Zera’s sassy nature, just as readers will.
A seriously fun concoction of tragedy and melodrama.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-375-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An effervescent fantasy crafted from the heart.
This middle-grade debut sees a young outcast discover her true potential while on a quest to save others.
In the kingdom of Glendoch, the town of Tyr, 12-year-old Meylyne sits in a willow tree. She’s originally from the cavernous Between-World but has trespassed to the Above-World to find a special black opal belonging to her mother. Hiding in the tree, she waits to see Prince Piam, who only visits once a year. When a woman climbs into the tree with her, the situation gets precarious. The prince passes directly beneath—and Meylyne falls on him. She bolts back to the Between-World, realizing that she’s broken the First Rule by going above. Her mother, the alchemist Ellenyr, and her great-uncle, Prime Minister Groq, could send her to the Shadow Cellars. When she asks advice from the Old Well, it reveals the ultimatum that Queen Emery has offered Ellenyr: She must cure Prince Piam’s fast-aging illness within three months or Meylyne will live among the Snake People. The Old Well then tells the girl to visit the stream between the towns of Tyr and Welke, where she’ll meet a stalliynx (who has a horse’s head and a lion’s body). She does so, beginning a journey to save the prince and possibly all of Glendoch. With social nuance and a crackling wit, Holland presents a deep bench of fabulous creations in her fantasy adventure. Meylyne is only half-human and forbidden to use the magic that should be her birthright from Ellenyr. Her father, Meph, meanwhile, is a garlysle, who’s got a beak and feathers—and is supposedly a criminal. When Meylyne gives her mother the black opal, Ellenyr isn’t quite overjoyed. The stalliynx, named Hopexivaffoplos-ploossenaagen, suggests Meylyne call him Hope for short. Around this pair grows a cohort of heroes who commit to more and more dangerous tasks. Eventually, Meylyne learns that an aspect of herself—which she’s been taught to be ashamed of—proves central to solving a slew of problems. Holland excels in burying twists that flip the whole narrative on its head. Readers should wish for a longer stay in Glendoch.
An effervescent fantasy crafted from the heart.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-943006-79-3
Page Count: 245
Publisher: Spark Press
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so much a vision of a complicated future as a warmhearted ode to a simpler time and place in a community so small that...
Doucette's genial, leisurely novel feels like a throwback to the squeaky clean science fiction of the mid-20th century.
Though marketed toward adults, this book would seem just as much at home in the young adult section. Its 16-year-old heroine, Annie Collins, is the smartest and most capable person in her little mill town in western Massachusetts, with the possible exception of her odd, home-schooled best friend, Violet. Annie is also probably the one who knows the most about the spaceship that landed in a nearby field in Sorrow Falls three years ago and has been sitting there ever since, observed with dismay and interest by the military and a group of “alien watchers” camped out in RVs equipped with surveillance equipment as close to the ship as the military will allow. Annie, whose personal life includes a mother dying of cancer and a semirequited crush on a young soldier with a lot of time on his hands, is recruited by a mysterious newcomer to help him get to know the town; Ed Somerville calls himself a journalist, but he seems to have connections to the military. Doucette (The Frequency of Aliens, 2017, etc.) takes his time advancing the plot, which finally picks up its pace in the last quarter of the book, when soldiers and townspeople, both alive and long dead, start behaving like zombies, leaving most of the novel's named characters to grab some wheels and head toward the spaceship in hopes of placating its inhabitants. The science behind the fiction is largely unconvincing, and Doucette's dialogue is often clunky and overloaded with exposition. But the town is vividly realized and described, and its physical and social reality helps ground the more unlikely elements of the story in a sense of place. Doucette's dry sense of humor and obvious affection for his characters go a long way toward compensating for the novel's meandering progress.
Not so much a vision of a complicated future as a warmhearted ode to a simpler time and place in a community so small that everybody knows everybody else's business.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-56746-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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