This American edition of a prize-winning English novel combines convincing historical detail, smart, engaging storytelling, and a simple science-fiction premise to produce an exciting, highly readable, and morally complex tale. Andrea, an English anthropologist of the near future, has been hired by FUP, a powerful international corporation, to study and live among the residents of the lawless 16th-century borderlands between England and Scotland. Having established a time-tube between the periods, FUP intends to exploit the natural resources of the past, and Bryce, the executive in charge, expects Andrea to provide him information to help manipulate the locally powerful Sterkarm family. Far heftier than is fashionable in the 21st-century, Andrea is the height of beauty in the 16th, and becomes the lover and intended bride of Per, son of Toorkild, the leader of the Sterkarms. While charmed by the warmth, wit, and loyalty of the Sterkarms, Andrea is appalled by the brutality and squalor of a life without medicine, plagued by disease and constant deadly battles. When Bryce, a cartoonishly evil bad guy among otherwise multifaceted portraits (he even taunts Andrea about her weight), who interprets the Sterkarms lack of modern polish as stupidity, decides to ignore Andrea’s council and use force and deception to control them, Andrea finds herself torn between her feelings for her adopted people and her loyalties to her own time. Along with romance, adventure, and the wonderfully rendered picture of life in the 16th century—you can smell and hear it as well as see it—adults and more sophisticated teens will appreciate the ambiguities of cultural values in conflict. (Fiction. 12+)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-028959-7
Page Count: 428
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly...
In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility.
As Jonas approaches the "Ceremony of Twelve," he wonders what his adult "Assignment" will be. Father, a "Nurturer," cares for "newchildren"; Mother works in the "Department of Justice"; but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling. In the event, he is named "Receiver," to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories—painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder; the Elder ("The Giver") now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. The process is deeply disturbing; for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as "release" is revealed to be murder. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to "Elsewhere," a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a newchild he has come to love. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing.
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 978-0-395-64566-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
A sweet if muddled tale of the magic of Appalachia.
A teenage witch goes up against the evil king of the mountain to save a cursed village.
Witch-in-training Verity Vox has spent a year apiece in different villages, helping in any way she can as she learns her art. When it’s time to move on, she receives a sign that shows her where to go next. When the latest sign appears in the form of a note begging for help that floats down on a leaf, she’s eager for the challenge. Verity winds up in Foxfire, a village in the Appalachian mountains that’s been magically cut off from the rest of the world for years, leaving its people close to starvation. The root of their suffering is a man they know as Earl, who lives in the hills and strikes deals with the townspeople that ultimately cause crops to wither, folks to disappear, and the only bridge out of the valley to crumble. Verity is determined to change the villagers’ fortunes, but to do so she’ll have to face off against not just Earl but the ancient power of the mountains itself. Loosely based on the Germanic Erlking legend and told in a voice reminiscent of folktales, the story features a queer romance and a cast that presents white. The convoluted magic system undercuts the strong themes of reciprocity, poverty, and privilege, but Appalachian readers will instantly recognize home.
A sweet if muddled tale of the magic of Appalachia. (Fantasy. 13-18)Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9798890032706
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Page Street
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
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