A low-key but detailed introduction to a world of uncanny characters and creatures.
In Murphy’s debut, the first in a prospective supernatural series, people in a small town become entangled in an ongoing war between immortal beings.
At a glance, Wichita is a quiet, modest town near South Kansas City. Local truck driver Mark finally gathers up the courage to ask out Sharon, who works the counter at the one-stop shop he patronizes. Meanwhile, Mark’s friend Ron is at odds with his ex-convict brother, Tommy, who’s just finished a 15-year stint in prison. Other residents include reputedly immortal witches. Nearly 250 years ago, the area was the site of the Great War in which witches and human Hunters battled wolflike beasts called Jackals. That war officially ended, but the tension between the various beings continues to this day. Witches have tried to increase their numbers through recruitment, including reaching out to some people who aren’t aware they have witch bloodlines.Now, witches are contacting local residents, including Sharon’s parents, who may be at least part witch and have powerful abilities. Tracking down potential recruits is essential, as recent maulings of campers suggest that Riffs—vampire-Jackal hybrids—are in the vicinity and that all-out war may soon be returning to Kansas. Murphy’s novel is populated by myriad, vibrant characters with engrossing backstories. For example, Mark and his mother both suffered abuse at the hands of his alcoholic father, and readers eventually learn about the crime that sent Tommy away, which ties to other characters’ pasts. A prologue offers a hint of the Great War in 1782 and another section portrays witch recruitment in 1815, but most of the story consists of present-day characters in real-world predicaments. Frequent dialogue scenes give the narrative a consistent pace and are often informative, and although very little action occurs in this book, Murphy has plenty of material to develop in planned sequels.
A low-key but detailed introduction to a world of uncanny characters and creatures.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-55-349462-9
Page Count: 273
Publisher: Cosby Media Productions
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.
After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781639733965
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A secret history that toys with the mythos of dark academia while reveling in its excesses.
What happens when students at a school for the paranormal decide that enough is enough?
Best known for video games, queer horror, and a collaboration with Richard Kadrey (The Dead Take the A Train, 2023), Khaw detours to visit an elite school and the damaged young adults it serves. At 21, Alessa Li wakes up with a start to find she’s been kidnapped from home in Montreal and apparently enrolled in college, simply because she’s incredibly dangerous. In fact, the Hellebore Technical Institute for the Ambitiously Gifted is less an homage to Hogwarts than a gory rebuttal dressed in wizard’s robes. The story moves between two timelines; the first offers Alessa’s introduction to her creepy classmates, while the second finds them all under siege later in the titular library. “Appendage to the main campus, it acted only in the faculty’s interest, which seemed to revolve exclusively around fucking us students over,” Alessa explains. Among the 20-odd students, cult member Portia transmogrifies into some kind of insectoid critter every now and then; Eoan sacrifices himself by feeding his own body to the school’s ravenous hosts in order to protect his friends; Delilah is an “immortal sacrifice,” dying over and over again in the service of the gods; while Rowan is a “deathworker” whose destiny is foretold by prophecy. There are some intriguing elements—and it’s often hard to take. Like other postmodern antiheroines, among them Chuck Wendig’s Miriam Black (Blackbirds, 2015, etc.) and Julie Crews from The Dead Take the A Train, Alessa’s primary operating mode is pretty much caustic bitch, and her classmates don’t temper it much. Whether the deadpan violence and body horror is excessive is a matter of personal taste, but there’s no denying that the whole thing is pretty squelchy and it’s not always easy to follow. Proceed with caution.
A secret history that toys with the mythos of dark academia while reveling in its excesses.Pub Date: July 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781250877819
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Nightfire
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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