An impressive step forward for the versatile Phillips, who continues to engage, surprise and entertain.
A symphony of psychological complexity and misdirection in four increasingly tricky movements displays the varied wares of the gifted Phillips (The Egyptologist, 2004, etc.).
In a brooding family drama set in turn-of-the-century London (presumably the turn from the 19th to the 20th), former shopgirl Constance Barton begins to withdraw from her husband, Joseph (a medical researcher who had formerly served with the British Army), and into protective intimacy with their bewitching four-year-old daughter Angelica, whose birth had been preceded by several miscarriages. Fearful of enduring another failed pregnancy, Constance forsakes her husband’s bed, pleading that the sensitive Angelica needs her constantly. And, appalled by evidence of the “cruelty” of Joseph’s researches (i.e., mutilation and vivisection of animals), repelled by his evident masculine needs, Constance persuades herself that she sees proof of both malign ghostly presences invading their home and the more-than-fatherly interest shown toward Angelica by Joseph (born Bartone, hence of hot-blooded ancestry). Is Constance mad, or does she alone sense the presence of unspeakable evil? Phillips juggles possibilities almost as adroitly as did Henry James in this novel’s likely inspiration, The Turn of the Screw—and he ups the ante in successive narratives focused on the duplicitous spiritualist (“Anne Montague”) engaged by Constance, who quickly falls under this formidable older woman’s not-entirely-professional influence; “Joseph Barton” himself, who gradually emerges as rather less a villain than an ingenuous victim; and finally “Angelica,” years after the novel’s major events, when she has learned—but still does not fully understand—the personal histories that set her formerly loving parents at incompatible odds. A further mystery is found in the identity of the narrator, neatly revealed late in the story (though less of a surprise than Phillips perhaps intends). Elegant writing abounds, as do probing characterizations and flashes of wit (the two nicely conjoined in the figure of self-important, gourmandizing consulting psychologist Doctor Miles).
An impressive step forward for the versatile Phillips, who continues to engage, surprise and entertain.Pub Date: April 10, 2007
ISBN: 1-4000-6251-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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