A weird, wonderful installment of a fantasy saga that’s inching toward greatness.
This sequel to Cole’s (Henry’s Re-entry, 2014, etc.) epic fantasy The Pleasure of Memory (2013) sees disparate members of an ancient order preparing for battle against a villainous fire mage.
The art of magic, which is based on the mysterious Caeyl stones, is dying out in the land of Calevia. Following the events of the previous book, the thieving rogue Beam is also dying, but luckily he has the Caeyllth Blade, which houses the rare Blood Caeyl stone. Inside a vast crypt, his friend Chance Gnoman, along with the Baeldonian giant Jhom, place the physically ravaged Beam inside a tent so that the magic stone can heal him. Elsewhere, another Baeldon named Wenzil interrogates his captive, the Vaemysh Mawby, and learns that they are both members of the Lamys te’Faht (the Eye of the Faithful), part of a lineage of cleric knights who await signs of impending dark times. According to the occult order’s legends, the rise of a Fire Caeyl Mage will herald the end of civilization and the return of the Divinic Demons. It turns out that Prae the Biled, Chance’s nemesis, is that mage, and it’s up to the Lamys te’Faht to halt his demonic army. Sibling smugglers Lucifeus and Malevolus, however, have already caught some Vaemysh trackers on their lands who appear to be demonically possessed, which escalates the war. This second volume of Cole’s saga, like the first, uses dialogue-heavy chapters to illuminate the meticulously crafted corners of his world; one of the most thrilling tells of the exorcism of a demon being. The difference in this installment is that the stakes have risen sharply, and fantasy readers should strap in for a dark, twisted ride—even if most of the narrative merely sets up a potentially more intense third volume. Cole’s prose is evocative, as always; he describes Beam’s injuries, for example, as a “torn map of flesh.” There are also great philosophical moments, as when Wenzil says, “Hope’s a deep well....Sometimes there’s water at the bottom, sometimes there just ain’t.” The very best chapters deal with Beam’s inward journey and expose the startling history of Calevia. Overall, this book offers great rewards for Cole’s loyal readers.
A weird, wonderful installment of a fantasy saga that’s inching toward greatness.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0989424974
Page Count: 520
Publisher: Caelstone Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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