A powerful young woman struggles to save her kingdom from a megalomaniac and redeem her past mistakes.
Renata is a Moria—a person with magical powers—in an Inquisition-type world where people with these abilities are persecuted and killed. When she was a girl, Renata was taken from her parents and used to steal memories from the king’s enemies. Now, years later, she’s a member of the Whispers, a secret group working to overthrow the royal family and rescue the Moria from genocide. After a tragic turn of events, Renata must go back to the palace to fight the enemy from within. There, she struggles with her loyalty to the Whispers and falling back into old habits. With a faulty magical system and a mishmash of tropes, this incoherent fantasy never quite finds its footing. The dialogue is wooden, the prose is overwritten, and the characterization lacks nuance. Renata is a querulous protagonist who simultaneously acts helpless while also taking on the mantle of saving her world with her excellent fighting skills and quick thinking. Córdova (A Crash of Fate, 2019, etc.) tries to do too much—a historical setting, spycraft, a doomed romance, a plot to cure the Moria of their powers, and even a Stockholm syndrome thread—and doesn’t quite succeed at any of them. Most characters are brown skinned and have Spanish surnames.
A jampacked, overly plotted series opener that fails to coalesce. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-02380-1
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion/LBYR
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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Black is building a complex mythology; now is a great time to tune in.
14
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Black is back with another dark tale of Faerie, this one set in Faerie and launching a new trilogy.
Jude—broken, rebuilt, fueled by anger and a sense of powerlessness—has never recovered from watching her adoptive Faerie father murder her parents. Human Jude (whose brown hair curls and whose skin color is never described) both hates and loves Madoc, whose murderous nature is true to his Faerie self and who in his way loves her. Brought up among the Gentry, Jude has never felt at ease, but after a decade, Faerie has become her home despite the constant peril. Black’s latest looks at nature and nurture and spins a tale of court intrigue, bloodshed, and a truly messed-up relationship that might be the saving of Jude and the titular prince, who, like Jude, has been shaped by the cruelties of others. Fierce and observant Jude is utterly unaware of the currents that swirl around her. She fights, plots, even murders enemies, but she must also navigate her relationship with her complex family (human, Faerie, and mixed). This is a heady blend of Faerie lore, high fantasy, and high school drama, dripping with description that brings the dangerous but tempting world of Faerie to life.
Black is building a complex mythology; now is a great time to tune in. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-31027-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
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Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell...
12
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Adolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age.
The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist—30 million kruge!—Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz; the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal; Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina; Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills; and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. It’s a highly successful venture, leaving enough open questions to cause readers to eagerly await Volume 2.
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell into a family . (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-212-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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