Bringing love and unity to a broken land finds beautiful expression in this engaging fable.
This YA fairy tale describes in verse the story of an old curse that must be undone by righting wrongs.
In a fictional world similar to medieval Europe, Caravaille’s monarch rules so wisely that he’s known as King Sagan “the Fair,” but all is not well in his realm. Ninety-two years ago, Merk the Fierce, Sagan’s ancestor, stole the throne by killing King Daemon. Daemon’s dying wife, Queen Oriana, cursed Merk’s line for “three score years and more” with succession problems that would always lead to war and chaos. The aging Sagan, who has no son, wants to choose an heir among his three nephews, hoping the curse will have expired by now. Javan is the bravest warrior; Cadmon is kind and just; Sky is wise. Sagan’s adviser Lord Shin recommends careful study of Oriana’s entire curse, as does Zagir, an ancient sorcerer queen and the oldest person in Caravaille. Sagan earnestly tries to follow this advice, but each attempt to name an heir results in interference by mysterious animals (kestrel, cat, and wolf) who wreck the kingdom’s ancient symbols of royal rule. These can be repaired only by goldspun weaving, an art lost with Oriana’s death. The sorcerer queen holds the key to restoring this practice and the kingdom’s unity, if the right person can divine the truth. Michaels (The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry, 2017, etc.) uses quatrains rhyming ABCB, which gallop along at an effective pace. The rhymes work well and can sometimes be quite clever: Sagan “found himself bemused, befuddled / By the utter lack of deference, / The experience being quite outside / His lifelong frame of reference.” Also striking are the characters’ struggles to interpret the curse—is it a metaphor or what? Fairy-tale elements like a three-part structure and animal helpers provide appeal, while the story also benefits from an original take on the who-will-inherit question. The book is handsome, with appealing typography and illustrations by the author that enhance the tale’s medieval/Elizabethan flavor.
Bringing love and unity to a broken land finds beautiful expression in this engaging fable.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-941067-03-1
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Alcabal Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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Catch-22 is also concerned with some of war's horrors and atrocities, and it is at times painfully grim.
Catch-22 is an unusual, wildly inventive comic novel about World War II, and its publishers are planning considerable publicity for it.
Set on the tiny island of Pianosa in the Mediterranean Sea, the novel is devoted to a long series of impossible, illogical adventures engaged in by the members of the 256th bombing squadron, an unlikely combat group whose fanatical commander, Colonel Cathcart, keeps increasing the men's quota of missions until they reach the ridiculous figure of 80. The book's central character is Captain Yossarian, the squadron's lead bombardier, who is surrounded at all times by the ironic and incomprehensible and who directs all his energies towards evading his odd role in the war. His companions are an even more peculiar lot: Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who loved to win parades; Major Major Major, the victim of a life-long series of practical jokes, beginning with his name; the mess officer, Milo Minderbinder, who built a food syndicate into an international cartel; and Major de Coverley whose mission in life was to rent apartments for the officers and enlisted men during their rest leaves. Eventually, after Cathcart has exterminated nearly all of Yossarian's buddies through the suicidal missions, Yossarian decides to desert — and he succeeds.
Catch-22 is also concerned with some of war's horrors and atrocities, and it is at times painfully grim.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 1961
ISBN: 0684833395
Page Count: 468
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1961
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