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"NIGHT OF THE CLIPPER"

"IN THE AFTERMATH OF ONE OF THE NATION'S WORST AIR DISASTERS, ONE PASSENGER REMAINS."

A promising paranormal tale that ultimately fails to soar.

A teenager discovers that a victim of a 50-year-old plane crash isn’t yet at rest in this debut supernatural novel.

Fourteen-year-old Douglas Pledger isn’t thrilled when his family moves from Virginia to the small town of Elkton, Md., but when he explores a field near his new home, he encounters something extraordinary—the wreckage of a crashed jet that only he can see. His conversations with the colorful locals reveal that in 1963, Pan Am Flight 214 crashed in that same field, killing everyone aboard. Douglas soon befriends Dave Holt, a retired fireman who was one of the first responders to the scene. Together, they dig deeper into the events of that night and eventually contact Celeste Creeley, the cousin of Rose Kelly, a 12-year-old who died in the crash. Together, they discover that Rose’s restless spirit is trapped in the field, and only Douglas can help her find peace. Walcek spins a fanciful yarn, with healthy doses of the supernatural and, when an enterprising ghost hunter arrives on the scene, some high drama. It also effectively mixes fiction with fact: The novel’s characters are invented, but the descriptions of the plane’s final moments are drawn from real-life radio transmissions from a Pan Am flight. Although it’s a simple ghost story on the surface, it’s also an exploration of the ripple effects of disaster and how long-ago traumas can haunt people for decades. Unfortunately, its overwritten prose style slows the pace, and basic facts are often restated unnecessarily; one passage near the end of the book, for example, needlessly identifies Douglas as “a recently displaced teenager with enough on his plate from having been uprooted from his former home in Virginia.” Still, the burgeoning romance between Dave and Celeste is engaging, and readers will likely find it hard not to root for the sensitive, well-meaning Douglas as he desperately tries to make sense of the strange things happening around him.

A promising paranormal tale that ultimately fails to soar.

Pub Date: April 10, 2013

ISBN: 978-1484141250

Page Count: 432

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2013

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A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS

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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THE SONG RISING

From the Bone Season series , Vol. 3

A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.

The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.

Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.

A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.

Pub Date: March 7, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017

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