A fluid and inventive journey with a few dead-end detours.
Ruckus presents a YA fantasy novel about a modern girl’s adventures in disparate times and places.
Moliis a young girl from Penglai, China. She travels to London for the funeral of her father, Morris, a museum curator. His last work before his death was on the Rouran period—the Rouran ruled a portion of central Asia, part of which is now modern-day Kyrgyzstan. The exhibit on the Rouran era at the British Museum is not exactly popular; nevertheless, Moli and her aunt Edith dutifully attend, and Moli is able to show off her knowledge about a mythical dragon’s nine sons. Later, things take a turn when Moli is awakened in her hotel room by a dragon called Qiuniu, one of those sons, who leads her to a place in an alternate reality called the Corridor of War. Moli’s situation is further complicated when she travels back through time to the Rouran period. The Rourans think she is a shaman and keep her in a cage. Later, the action moves back to contemporary London, where Moli and three others are tasked with an opportunity to save the world. Their main opposition: Adolf Hitler, transported to the modern era. The story is rich in incident and packed with surprises, but a few elements deflate some of the excitement; at one point, James Walker, a boy who joins Moli on her mission to save the world, has to endure a lengthy lecture about where Covid-19 might have originated (“Many epidemiologists and scientists claimed that the virus could only come from nature, and if a quarter of them still stand by their professional code of conduct, what do you make of the situation then?”). Still, the mixture of time travel, mythology, SF tropes, and a spirited youngster in the lead makes for a truly wild narrative.
A fluid and inventive journey with a few dead-end detours.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2022
ISBN: 9781915338402
Page Count: 223
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Eerie and mysterious.
Sixteen-year-old orphaned twin sisters become embroiled with a coven of witches.
When the orphanage’s night matron attacks Ophelia and Serena, white-presenting twins “born on either side of midnight,” Serena’s previously untapped magical powers emerge. She sends a bolt of lightning hurtling toward the night matron. Ultimately the twins must be saved by two witches, who reveal that their adversary was a Dark Witch in disguise. Their rescuers—Sagittarius, who has tawny brown skin, jet black hair, and “almond eyes” and can conjure portals, and Leo, a pale-skinned redhead with the power of telekinesis—are part of a coven based on star signs, with new members born each year. The Twelve are duty-bound to kill Dark Witches. After they’re whisked away from the orphanage, the sisters are introduced to other members of the coven, each named for an astrological sign, including ebony-skinned Taurus, who’s their head witch. Ophelia and Serena are pressured to join as Pisces and Aries in order to help the group assemble the strongest force possible for their inevitable battle against the Dark Twelve, who are led by the world’s highest-ranked witch. This atmospheric, pulse-pounding fantasy of sisterhood and witchcraft initially seems like a classic tale of good versus evil but quickly becomes something much more ambiguous but no less chilling. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to differentiate among the large cast due to some of their personalities being underdeveloped.
Eerie and mysterious. (Fantasy. 13-18)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780063339552
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unequivocally hilarious and delightful.
Valentine’s Day is the new Groundhog Day in Painter’s latest teen romance.
According to Emilie Hornby, “love is for planners,” and she is confident that Josh is the perfect boyfriend: He is well liked, academically gifted, and extremely handsome. So after dating him for three months, she adds “Say ‘I love you’ to Josh!!!!!!!!!!!” to her Valentine’s Day to-do list. But Fate has other plans for Emilie, and she ends up crashing her car into her surly chemistry lab partner Nick’s truck, losing a journalism fellowship due to a clerical error, and catching Josh kissing his beautiful ex in his car. After sleeping over at her grandma’s, Emilie wakes up in her own bedroom and discovers that it is Feb. 14 again. Trapped in a time loop where she repeatedly relives the day’s heartbreaking events, she tries to manipulate things in order to free herself. But tomorrow never seems to come, and she keeps finding her way back to Nick, who is not only annoyingly handsome, but surprisingly charming. Painter plucks readers’ every heartstring, from writing a sweet love story between two teens with very different views on romance to honestly depicting how Emilie’s parents’ messy divorce has impacted her feelings of self-worth. Italicized confessions at the beginnings of various chapters prove there is a playful side to Emilie that is further brought out by Nick, whose constant teasing leads to flirty banter. Main characters are cued as White.
Unequivocally hilarious and delightful. (Romance. 13-18)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-7886-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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