A taut, if not entirely original, fantasy novel.
Goodwin (The Wolf of Winterthorne, 2016, etc.) launches a new YA series with this tale of a novice witch trying to stay alive.
Tessa Egan’s 18th birthday comes with some unexpected life changes. An orphan from age 11, Tessa has been told by the ghost of her father that she will become a witch on that day, which, in her small Pacific Northwest town of Massa, means that she is likely to be abducted or murdered. “While most seventeen going on eighteen-year-olds would be excited about cake and presents,” narrates Tessa, “I wait alone in an eerie darkness prepared to battle some unknown monster.” Tessa has trained for this moment and, with the last-minute help of a stranger named Alec Findlay, is able to fight off the entities that come to kill her. Alec is a guardian, a protector and guide who has information about Tessa’s transformation, such as why her hair is suddenly turning blue from the use of her magic. From Alec, Tessa learns that she isn’t just a normal witch, but one with extraordinary powers, which means the forces pursuing her will come at her relentlessly until she’s dead. Tessa will have to hone her skills with the help of Alec and his dissimilar brother Josh, both of whom she finds herself strongly attracted to for different reasons. The only way she can fulfill a prophecy and save the various factions of her world from an impending calamity is to fight back. Goodwin’s prose is laden with urgency and moves a mile a minute, bouncing from event to event at a propulsive pace. There’s a lot of background information crammed into the first few chapters, but readers familiar with the rhythms of YA fantasy should catch on quickly to the prophecies and ancient conflicts that characterize Tessa’s milieu. The book hews closely to genre tropes in a way that keeps it from becoming too surprising, and Tessa and her friends are not the most complex characters ever put on paper. Even so, Goodwin hits the requisite beats to make this a serviceable first volume in a planned series.
A taut, if not entirely original, fantasy novel.Pub Date: May 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5446-5989-3
Page Count: 356
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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