by Tess Collins ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 4, 2017
A vivid first installment of a saga that will make readers look forward to the next.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
An Appalachian woman and her son struggle to protect their mountain home in Collins’ (The Hunter of Hertha, 2015, etc.) historical-fantasy series starter.
In 1894, Delta Wade lives on Shadow Mountain with her young son, Lafette. Arn Marlon, Delta’s missing common-law husband, is a Watcher: a person who can wield the mountain’s magic and protect its people from harm. Delta hopes that Arn, long rumored dead, will return to raise his son as the next Watcher and protect their home from the Kingsleys, a rich family that’s bringing in industrialization and all the changes that come with it. The Kingsley family patriarch, King Kingsley, once tried to kill Arn and now harasses Delta in order to get harvesting rights to the magical Tyme trees covering Shadow Mountain. Kingsley’s son, the kind and handsome Henry, is desperately in love with Delta and tries to protect her from his father, while Kate Huston, Delta’s former mentor, seeks to take ownership of the mountain, claiming that only her stronger magic can keep it safe. Dueling economic and magical powers lead to a cataclysmic event that destroys multiple characters’ lives. Years later, an isolated Delta and a grown Lafette get a slim opportunity to revive what’s been lost. The fictional world of Shadow Mountain is complex and layered, with multiple characters all pursuing different, if sometimes-overlapping, goals. The result is a riotous, complex tale that still feels somber and elegiac as old ways conflict with new changes. Fittingly enough for a battle over a place, Collins’ descriptions of the setting are particularly vivid; a stand of poplar trees, for example, are “so tall they seemed like strings dropping from the sky.” The book’s first part brims with narrative tension as the conflicting interests come to a head, but the second part feels slacker, with less clearly defined conflicts, greater reliance on magical events and mystical sightings, and an ending that borders on a deus ex machina. But Collins’ well-defined, likable characters and colorful atmosphere are enjoyable throughout even when the plotting gets less coherent.
A vivid first installment of a saga that will make readers look forward to the next.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-937356-46-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: BearCat Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
More by Tess Collins
BOOK REVIEW
by Tess Collins
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
Share your opinion of this book
More by J.D. Salinger
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.