Enthralling magic-and-crime escapism.
Following Ace of Shades (2018), Enne and Levi delve deeply into the politics of New Reynes.
The brush with the Phoenix Club leaves Enne vowing to avenge her mother and Levi determined to rebuild himself into legend—but first, they both must contend with the Augustine crime Family. Vianca Augustine orders Enne to help secure the election of the monarchist candidate in the senate election and to embrace her new street lord notoriety as Séance in starting her own street gang. Rookie Enne insists on doing it her way, maintaining her prim decorum and recruiting fellow girls (like gothic-styled Grace), which results in female friendship and not-terribly-subtle empowerment themes. Levi’s been offered a way out from under Vianca’s thumb and secretly works to support her estranged son’s candidacy—at the price of keeping his distance from Enne (so that Vianca can’t use them against each other—though it frees him up for a dalliance with handsome Narinder), sending third narrator Jac, a recovering addict, into drug dens owned by the Torren Family. The dizzying number of moving plot parts results in a cascade of alliances, betrayals, and reversals as the sprawling cast has romances of various sexual orientations but also friendships and other bonds—and not all bonds survive. Enne, Jac, Grace, and the crime Families are White; Levi and Narinder are brown-skinned; the supporting cast has a range of skin tones.
Enthralling magic-and-crime escapism. (map) (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: April 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-335-66134-0
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2020
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense.
Everyone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago—except Pippa Fitz-Amobi.
Pip has known and liked Sal since childhood; he’d supported her when she was being bullied in middle school. For her senior capstone project, Pip researches the disappearance of former Fairview High student Andie, last seen on April 18, 2014, by her younger sister, Becca. The original investigation concluded with most of the evidence pointing to Sal, who was found dead in the woods, apparently by suicide. Andie’s body was never recovered, and Sal was assumed by most to be guilty of abduction and murder. Unable to ignore the gaps in the case, Pip sets out to prove Sal’s innocence, beginning with interviewing his younger brother, Ravi. With his help, Pip digs deeper, unveiling unsavory facts about Andie and the real reason Sal’s friends couldn’t provide him with an alibi. But someone is watching, and Pip may be in more danger than she realizes. Pip’s sleuthing is both impressive and accessible. Online articles about the case and interview transcripts are provided throughout, and Pip’s capstone logs offer insights into her thought processes as new evidence and suspects arise. Jackson’s debut is well-executed and surprises readers with a connective web of interesting characters and motives. Pip and Andie are white, and Sal is of Indian descent.
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-9636-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters.
Two young people save the world and all the magic in it in this series opener.
When tall, dark-haired, white-skinned Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in Scotland, he ventures to the top of a forbidden hill and discovers astonishing magical creatures. His grandfather explains that Christopher’s family are guardians of the “way through” to the Archipelago, where the Glimourie Tree grows—the source of glimourie, or the world’s magic. Black-haired, olive-skinned Mal Arvorian, a girl from the Archipelago, is being pursued by a murderer, and she asks Christopher for help, launching them both on a wild, dangerous journey to discover why the glimourie is disappearing and how to stop it. Together with a part-nereid woman, a ratatoska, a dragon, and a Berserker, they face an odyssey of dangerous tasks to find the Immortal, the only one who can reverse the draining of magic. Like Lyra and Will from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mal and Christopher sacrifice their innocence for experience, meeting every challenge with depthless courage until they finally reach the maze at the heart of it all. Rundell throws myriad obstacles in her characters’ way, but she gives them tools both tangible (a casapasaran, which always points the way home, and the glamry blade, which cuts through anything) and intangible (the desire “to protect something worth protecting” and an “insistence that the world is worth loving”). Final art not seen.
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593809860
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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