A promising start to a new series.
A middle school girl travels to another dimension to save her parents’ homeland from destruction in this debut middle-grade sci-fi/fantasy novel.
On the last day of seventh grade, Veronica comes home to learn that her parents are actually exiled royalty from the land of Enos on the planet Dara, which exists in another dimension. The world that her parents used to rule faces a serious invasion threat, and Veronica finds out that she’s the only person who can communicate with the Prestar, a device which holds the Solito, a stone that allows Enos’ royalty to use their magical powers. An old friend from Enos named Dolches Carl escorts Veronica across the dimensions, and teenage horse thief Tiber and hapless but beautiful Princess Selmalina soon join them on their quest. When a traitorous king imprisons Dolches, the three young people must work together to save Enos. Although Veronica and Selmalina mostly stay focused on the existential threat, they also devote a lot of energy to a Mean Girls–style rivalry driven by Veronica’s crush on Tiber and her jealousy of Selmalina’s beauty. At the book’s conclusion, Veronica returns to her home and her parents, who are still banished from Enos—but the stage is clearly set for future installments. Fantasy fans may not find the book’s length to be a problem, but a more concise narrative might have kept the plot moving more steadily between perils. The writing is uneven, with clever chapter headings (“I Find Out My Parents Used to Be Interesting”; “I Almost Do Something Right”) but sometimes-clunky prose (“Selmalina, Dolches, and I settled into reasonably relaxed-looking positions”; “Tiber said something that I believed was a Sapangan curse because I heard my dad say the same word one day when he accidentally hit his thumb with a hammer”). However, the vibrant characters, both human and non, are consistently strong throughout.
A promising start to a new series.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1489531742
Page Count: 296
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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