With muted power, this book plumbs the role privilege plays in fate.
A mother’s frantic postwar search for her daughter is the highlight of Landau’s latest.
Landau’s second novel—like her first, The Empire of the Senses (2015)—portrays haut bourgeois European Jews who find their carefully crafted assimilation no defense against barbarism. Having fled the Russian Revolution for Paris, Vera Volosenkovahas achieved success as a novelist. In June 1940, she and husband Max, an opera composer, are ensconced at their villa in the south of France, surrounded by prominent artists and intellectuals, all in denial about the coming German occupation. Landau effectively depicts the psychological disconnect between Vera’s expectations—that civilization could not fail her twice in less than three decades—and the sudden reality of being ordered to “report for internment.” Vera and Max are among the privileged few who manage to escape over the Pyrenees and sail to the United States. Out of necessity, Vera leaves their 4-year-old daughter, Lucie, in France in the care of trusted governess Agnes. Having relocated with many stellar contemporaries to Hollywood, Max finds a comfortable niche as a film composer. Wrongly or not—Max’s inner turmoil is withheld from us in a way that seems manipulative—Vera resents his seeming indifference, particularly after news breaks of a massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane, Lucie’s last known refuge. An alternating thread involves Hollywood screenwriter and aspiring director Sasha, whose origins lie in the shtetls and the Lower East Side. Plotlines converge, like America’s entry into the war, at first too slowly and then breathlessly as Vera returns to chaotic, post-Liberation France on a desperate quest to find Lucie among thousands of missing children. Hollywood’s prewar reluctance to offend Hitler is scantly touched on, and the United States’ embargo on refugees not at all. As the novel progresses, the main conflict is between Vera’s remorse about leaving Lucie and the protective bubble she inhabits.
With muted power, this book plumbs the role privilege plays in fate.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-19053-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
