Corporate espionage meets magic in this entertaining sequel.
The second book of Duff’s (Stack a Deck, 2017, etc.) Weir Chronicles embroils college student Rayne Bevan further in a millennia-old war—while she continues to fall for powerful magician Ian Black.
In the first book, Rayne learned of the Weir, an ancient alien race who are stewards of nature and dwell unknown alongside humans. They split into two factions, the well-intentioned Pur and the nefarious Duach. Duach leader Aeros commissioned a deadly biological weapon from Richard Donovan, CEO of Lux Pharmaceuticals, that’s able to kill Sars, the firstborn sons of the Weir who possess various magical powers. What Aeros doesn’t know is that his own son, Jaered, is in league with rebel leader Eve and that he plans to save humanity and Earth from his father’s scheming by stealing the bioweapon. Meanwhile, Ian has been enlisted by his manager’s mother, JoAnna Langtree, to use his illusionist skills to rescue Donovan’s wife, Carlene, and son, Bryant, from the CEO’s grasp—but he soon realizes there’s more to Donovan and his son than meets the eye. Jaered, determined to keep the Sar-destroying serum out of his father’s hands, is willing to exchange the deaths of Donovan’s family for the vial. Will Ian, Rayne, and their allies save them in time? While the first installment sometimes overwhelmed with back story, all the previous exposition allows this book to move at a quick, exciting pace, particularly during Ian’s and Jaered’s simultaneous heists at Lux Pharmaceuticals. A dizzying number of characters both old and new might challenge readers’ memories. Rayne and Ian’s romance, stymied by the fact that they cannot touch without Ian’s suffering terrible pain, gets little airtime, but there’s plenty of action and intrigue to spare.
Corporate espionage meets magic in this entertaining sequel.Pub Date: April 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9905628-5-6
Page Count: 382
Publisher: CrossWinds Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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