An often complex and exciting fantasy with a few flaws.
A young witch seeks to break a magical gem’s hold over her in this sequel.
Sixteen-year-old Elan Montescue of the Riege is a memory witch, able to read recollections through crystals and pieces of cloth. In this fantasy series’ first book, Elan left the safety of her Keep planning to avenge her family’s murder, and discovered an outside world full of warring factions. She also met Stille Vespers, her “Anaiah,” a boy her age who’s a kind of human crystal. After using a special “rubystone” to bring Stille back to life, she’s now in thrall to the gem. It wants her to meet with Catherine, the mother who abandoned Elan when she was 5, in the city of Darine. But Catherine is now allied to Our Master, a despot with powers of his own; he rules Karator, across the Impassable River, and plans to invade the Riege. Refugees from Karator live a precarious life in the Riege, where they are mistrusted and scapegoated, but they too hate the Master. Kontessa, a Karator girl with a silver hand—symbolizing resistance to the Master—makes her way to Darine, as does King Marcellus, who survived a coup attempt by a religious sect and now travels in disguise to learn more about his realm. As a great conflict brews, things look dire—but a girl’s voice from the rubystone tells Elan of a way to defeat the Master. Can the voice be trusted? In this rich novel, Dillon (The Memory Witch, 2018, etc.) deftly weaves all these disparate strands together, giving readers a more comprehensive view of the Riege, Karator, and the people of this world. Strong action sequences enliven the plot, which sometimes bogs down a bit in the teenagers’ melodramatic emotions. For example, when Elan tells Stille about his miraculous rescue, he immediately concludes: “You’ve turned me into a monster. . . . I should be dead.” In addition, cloth and crystal magic, so original and integral to the first volume, plays little role here, which is somewhat disappointing.
An often complex and exciting fantasy with a few flaws.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73347-540-2
Page Count: 404
Publisher: RJA Enterprises
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
