A beach read with depth that will keep readers engaged.
Beautiful and gifted with a lovely voice, Elyse was on the verge of launching a successful singing career in Tobago with her twin sister, Natalie, until an accident ended her dreams and career forever.
Body healed, heart and soul still battered and torn, Elyse has fled to a tiny town on the Oregon coast, accepting an invitation to stay with Lemon, an old family friend, and her daughter, Kirby. Raw pain prevents Elyse from accepting Kirby’s overtures of friendship or socializing; then hot, charismatic Christian Kane arrives home from Stanford and offers Elyse a job: help him restore and race his battered sailboat in the annual regatta. The stakes rise when Christian’s dad and the mayor manipulate their sons, close friends, into competing against each other. If Christian wins, his father won’t sell his property—the Kane house and the adjacent house Lemon rents from him—to a developer as a looming voter initiative on development threatens to turn Atargatis Cove into another cookie-cutter resort town. Falling in love with Christian and their steamy romance awaken Elyse’s desire to find a way forward for herself, yet with each step, she’s flooded anew with regret for all she’s lost. While the plot follows category romance norms and occasionally dips into melodrama, Elyse’s journey and struggles to assimilate her disability—portrayed with compassion and insight—are compelling and original.
A beach read with depth that will keep readers engaged. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-0127-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Black is building a complex mythology; now is a great time to tune in.
Black is back with another dark tale of Faerie, this one set in Faerie and launching a new trilogy.
Jude—broken, rebuilt, fueled by anger and a sense of powerlessness—has never recovered from watching her adoptive Faerie father murder her parents. Human Jude (whose brown hair curls and whose skin color is never described) both hates and loves Madoc, whose murderous nature is true to his Faerie self and who in his way loves her. Brought up among the Gentry, Jude has never felt at ease, but after a decade, Faerie has become her home despite the constant peril. Black’s latest looks at nature and nurture and spins a tale of court intrigue, bloodshed, and a truly messed-up relationship that might be the saving of Jude and the titular prince, who, like Jude, has been shaped by the cruelties of others. Fierce and observant Jude is utterly unaware of the currents that swirl around her. She fights, plots, even murders enemies, but she must also navigate her relationship with her complex family (human, Faerie, and mixed). This is a heady blend of Faerie lore, high fantasy, and high school drama, dripping with description that brings the dangerous but tempting world of Faerie to life.
Black is building a complex mythology; now is a great time to tune in. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-31027-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
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