A whodunit in fantasy form makes for a complex, original tale.
A servant of the god of autumn tries desperately to figure out who stranded her master in the land of the living.
Tirne holds a coveted position within a religious sect that worships the four seasons, each personified by a different deity. As Autumn’s Herald, she is responsible for escorting the god from the divine realm to the human world every fall and back again via an ancient portal called the Mirror that Heralds alone can manipulate. During their annual three-month sojourn abroad, Autumn sleeps with a mortal Consort to produce magical demigods known as Scions, and Tirne catches up with friends, takes part in earthly life, and enjoys rendezvous with her own lovers. Since she was appointed Herald five years ago, Tirne has excelled in the role—until, that is, the Mirror inexplicably shatters after she and Autumn cross over for the sixth time, severing the connection between the two domains and spelling bad news for mortals. With the Mirror broken, autumn will stretch out indefinitely, food reserves will run out, and many will starve—not to mention that the trapped souls of the dead will begin feeding on the living. It’s a premise that recalls the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, but with plenty of twists and additions. Horrified and shaken, members of the sect and even skilled civilians immediately set to work trying both to repair the Mirror and find the person or people responsible for its destruction. Suspicion immediately falls on Tirne, the last person to touch the Mirror before it broke, and she is demoted to common acolyte. Devastated by the loss of her title, status, and sense of self, Tirne begins to conduct her own research into the Mirror’s destruction. Some plot points feel disconnected from the larger narrative, and the ending comes abruptly, but the mystery is compelling and Tirne's world is richly drawn.
A whodunit in fantasy form makes for a complex, original tale.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781250896490
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
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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