Richly conceived, enjoyable, and a treat for readers of myths and legends.
An imaginative journey into a spirit world, evoking ancient myths about death and the afterlife.
A fisherman travels from the material world to the Isle of the Dead to find his beloved. The island is populated with shape-shifting characters, many of them gods or goddesses. Countless clams hold the souls of the dead, which are “tasty little morsels” for the crow who is the undisputed King of the Dead. The fisherman strikes a deal with the crow to find the clam containing his beloved and not eat it, but the crow thinks of him as that “flaming dingleberry,” and the fisherman soon wants to kill the “foul tyrant” crow. The characters are marvelously entertaining—a frigatebird, a pelican, and a cormorant are low-level gods with distinct personalities. They befriend the fisherman and fear the crow, who refers to himself with the royal “We.” (He can take the form of a man, a mole, a dragonfly, or any other shape he wants.) And there is Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice and fertility, who cannot do harm and finds the crow pretty sexy in his human form. For the crow’s part, she makes his “zibik” hard enough to carve an “entire forest into toothpicks.” A couple of sex scenes are explicit despite metaphors of arrows and quivers and touching that brings “earth and heaven together.” But both know that lust doesn’t equate with love, and soon he wants her dead. Incidentally, the entire spirit world lies inside the belly of the giant beast Kiamah, “the devourer of all things.” Yet island residents still enjoy their ale, and at one point the fisherman declares “It’s good to be alive!” This island of the dead is more active than a lot of retirement communities.
Richly conceived, enjoyable, and a treat for readers of myths and legends.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-942436-37-9
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Forest Avenue
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
A flight of fancy in time and space which transcribes some incidents which take place on the planet of Mars, there's a literary, visionary quality here and an avoidance of the more mechanistic aspects of this medium. From the first expeditions from the earth in rocket ships, to the first settlements, this projects the war to come in which the earth is almost totally destroyed, and the return to Mars- now a wasted, lonely land, by some of its survivors. None of the complexities of concepts or formulae, this has an imaginative rather than technical ingenuity.
Pub Date: May 4, 1950
ISBN: 0380973839
Page Count: 259
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1950
An exciting fantasy/romance debut: action-packed, emotionally charged, and skillfully plotted.
When Cat, a mysterious circus soothsayer, is captured by Griffin, a wily warlord who recently won his kingdom’s crown, she's disarmed by his strength, honor, and integrity, but she's afraid that tying her heart to his can only bring weakness and complications.
Cat has spent years in a circus, hiding from her past and avoiding the destiny that’s been ordained by an Oracle, until Griffin discovers her ability to know when people are lying and forces her to return with him to his kingdom. At first he's determined to use her as a weapon to help his family, which has recently taken the throne, but soon Griffin realizes that beneath Cat’s prickly personality lies a loyal heart and a font of magic unlike anything he’s ever seen—possibly unlike anything anyone has ever seen. Sexual and emotional tension crackles as they and their small band of warriors fight to get back to Griffin's kingdom, with Cat pledging her grudging allegiance after they're attacked by such a variety of enemies that it's hard to tell who’s after Griffin and who’s after Cat. Griffin is tired of magical royalty and nobility who look down their noses at their nonmagical subjects and ruin their kingdoms through selfish greed, and he's intrigued by his soothsayer, who clearly has noble breeding but has turned her back on her own past. She isn’t giving any secrets away, but as clues trickle out, it becomes clear that someone out there wants to take her alive and that the power Griffin has seen may be nothing compared to what she’s capable of, yet fighting her feelings—for Griffin, his team, his family—becomes almost as hard as hiding her magic. Debut author Bouchet tells a swashbuckling tale through Cat’s irreverent, diffident, yet still somehow buoyant first-person point of view; this is an exquisite high-fantasy romance with masterful worldbuilding based on Greek mythology.
An exciting fantasy/romance debut: action-packed, emotionally charged, and skillfully plotted.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4926-2601-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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