A trio of Victorian women travel to Egypt and encounter dangers—chief among them a taste for independence—in an engaging new novel from the British author of The Painted Bridge (2012).
Though just a young woman, Harriet lives the life of an invalid in her parents' elegant home. She suffers from asthma, a condition intensified by the venomous air of London in 1882. Fascinated by Egypt, she persuades her doctor to prescribe a visit. Her mother, Louisa, agrees (after consultation with her spiritualist), and so mother, daughter and spinster Aunt Yael make the journey; there are delicious shades of Forster here—naïve imperialists en route to an unknowable land. On ship they meet Herr Professor Eberhardt Woolfe, who is transporting a grand piano, and Eyre Soane, a painter who recognizes Louisa from a shared (and infamous) past. Soane intends to capitalize on his secrets. Alexandria offers clean air for Harriet and a rebirth for Yael, who has spent her life doting on her father; while opening a clinic for children, she discovers her own considerable abilities. But all Louisa wants is a return to London, to be rid of Soane and the memories he stirs. As a girl, Louisa was “discovered” by the great portrait painter Augustus Soane, Eyre's father. Hoping for a way to advance the family, Louisa’s mother insisted she sit for him; little did she know her daughter posed nude and was victim to the great man’s advances. When Alexandria’s windstorms begin, Harriet and Louisa travel to Luxor, where they again meet professor Woolfe, an Egyptologist taken by Harriet’s knowledge. In her he has found a kindred spirit: Harriet makes copies of the hieroglyphics he unearths, helping him decode their meanings. Meanwhile, Soane has followed them to Luxor, and a rebellion is brewing among the Egyptians, making a return to England seem increasingly impossible. Whereas Wallace's first novel was marred by overreaching, this one is marked by a fine subtlety, making her a writer to watch.
Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4516-5812-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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