A delightful story of faraway lands with an admirable protagonist at the helm.
An apprentice physician becomes a de facto spy to protect her sovereign nation in Page’s fantasy debut.
In a fantastical realm, 18-year-old Isabel Moller, apprentice to Karlsborn Castle’s royal physician, tends to the ailing monarchs. The queen’s ailments are physical, while the king suffers a “madness” that the physicians haven’t yet found a cure for. When Isabel’s close friend’s murdered body washes ashore on the Sanok Isles where she lives, the young apprentice is determined to unmask the killer. That means stepping out of her element and agreeing to act as a “guide” for soldiers from the neighboring country of Volgaard; they’re in the Sanokes on a scouting trip that they don’t fully explain. (Isabel’s true agenda is hunting down Volgaard’s reputed “terrible and deadly” weapon, whatever it is.) She cozies up to the soldiers, who include the general’s handsome son Erik, to get any particulars on this weapon. If she passes along the valuable information that Volgaard plans to attack, Isabel can ensure that the Sanokes don’t lose their independence—or something even more precious. Page’s leisurely tale comes with a generous serving of subtle humor, often in the form of contemporary-feeling dialogue and narrative details; characters offer middle-finger responses and indulge in sitcom sarcasm (“If you don’t like it, you can always, I don’t know, leave?”). The sympathetic Isabel gives the novel an emotional resonance as she displays courage while struggling with her self-worth, an insecurity that stems from her father abandoning the family years ago. While much of the story involves Isabel ingratiating herself with the soldiers, it also includes numerous instances of understated romance as well as signs of magic—one such instance gives Isabel (and readers) the opportunity to see the forested Volgaard despite the action unfolding in the treeless Sanokes. The author rounds out this epic tale with a menacing villain who gradually comes to light alongside some shocking deaths and unexpected bonds.
A delightful story of faraway lands with an admirable protagonist at the helm.Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 4.99
Page Count: -
Publisher: Shadow Forge Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.
Childhood friends, almost-sweethearts, a misunderstanding, and a funeral.
Blair Lang and Declan Renshaw were best friends who went on one date before a disagreement and an accident sent them in different directions after high school. Now Blair is back from college to be with her great-aunt Lottie, who’s dying, and to support her single mother in small-town Seabrook, California. Finding a job at a coffee shop puts her in the path of her former boyfriend, since he turns out to be its owner. Can the two get past their mistakes? The novel uses the popular second-chance romance trope, but Pham fails to energize it through interesting characters. Blair’s grief over her great-aunt’s death and her plan to help her mother are overshadowed by internal monologues about her feelings, the way her friends aren’t paying attention to her, and the novel she plans to write. Declan’s distinguishing characteristic, besides being a former high school quarterback, is his skill at building birdhouses. Unsurprisingly, the couple doesn’t have much chemistry; when they embrace, their “bodies meld like…memory foam.” The wooden characters, unusual word choices (“conglomerate of pedestrians,” “litany of plants”), and odd turns of phrase (“tension melting from his eyebrows like butter melting in a warm pan”) are almost enough to obscure the lack of plot development. What passes for stakes is easily defused when Blair comes into an inheritance that saves her from working as a consultant at Ernst & Young in New York—so she can write a romance novel.
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781668095188
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
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