As usual in Green's books (Death Shall Come, 2017, etc.), there’s a long buildup that just might be supernatural paired with...
Guests of a quaint English countryside inn disappear over the course of an evening, to be replaced by ominous voices in the inn’s walls. Is it a curse or an illusion?
Ishmael Jones has taken his partner, Penny Belcourt, on a weekend getaway to enjoy Cornwall as a normal couple might, even though Ishmael and Penny are anything but normal. Ishmael is an alien imbued with special strengths, skills, and sensitivities but able to live among humans, and Penny, though not an alien, is one tough cookie. Ishmael’s abilities make him a perfect fit for high-level security, and a weekend off with Penny seems like just the relaxing break he needs from his stressful job. The two have been invited to celebrate Albert and Olivia Calvert’s renovation of Tyrone’s Castle Inn. The inn’s troubled history involves Elliot Tyrone poisoning guests at a Christmas meal, then claiming he was only acting on instructions from “Voices.” Since then, other reported murders have been linked to the voices, and the inn is widely considered cursed. Now that Albert and Olivia have lovingly restored the place to its former glory, they’re showing it off to Ishmael, Penny, and several other guests as a prelude to returning it to its original function. Before Olivia can serve dessert, however, she mysteriously vanishes, and it isn’t long before the Calverts’ guests are hearing echoes of voices in the hallways. Ishmael, who’s well-acquainted with the differences between legend and logic (Death Shall Come, 2017, etc.), believes there must be an earthly reason for Olivia’s disappearance and tries to keep the dinner party calm. His efforts fall on deaf ears as the partygoers are picked off one by one, leaving Ishmael and Penny to determine whether the curse is real or there’s a real-world motive for the mystery.
As usual in Green's books (Death Shall Come, 2017, etc.), there’s a long buildup that just might be supernatural paired with a brief conclusion that tells all. Think Scooby Doo starring a superpowered alien in human skin.Pub Date: March 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8757-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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