A vigorous and immersive vampire tale set against the twilight of the Romanovs.
An alternative history horror novel reimagines the fall of the Romanovs.
In December 1916, members of the Russian imperial family are prisoners in their own palace as the country teeters on the brink of revolution. The empress Alexandra and her son, Alexei, are plagued by a mysterious disease that causes them to crave blood and abhor sunlight. Alexei is visited in his sleep by “the shadow man,” who bids him to kill his father, Czar Nicholas. Meanwhile, an apocalyptic cult called the Khlysts has been appearing in St. Petersburg in growing numbers—and rumor has it that its members include some close to the imperial family. A strannik, or religious pilgrim, named Grigori Rasputin arrives in the city on a train from Bucharest carrying no papers or baggage. He has returned to oversee a venture he began long ago with the kidnapping of Alexandra—a plan of great consequence to Rasputin and his coven of vampires. St. Petersburg coroner Rurik Kozlov is convinced that the murdered bodies passing through his lab are the work of the Sleepwalker, a serial killer operating in Romania two decades earlier, though the local authorities are unwilling to admit as much. Rurik knows that there has been a hunt for evidence of Desmodus draculae—the god of the Khlysts—for years. In Rurik’s quest to stop the evil force, he finds an ally in Prince Felix Yusupov, the loving uncle of Alexei. If they fail, it is not only the Romanovs who will suffer, but all of Russia—and maybe the world. Gage’s prose is well calibrated for this Gothic series opener, blending imperial courtliness with vampire grisliness. “You will see I am a man of truth when your carriage crosses the Liteyny Bridge and continues up Bolshoy Sampsonievskiy,” Rasputin warns two aristocratic sisters upon meeting them. “Far outside of Saint Petersburg there is a cabin in the woods where your murderers await to hack you to bits.” There are a few moments when the book’s violence slides into poor taste, but on the whole, the story is a highly satisfying merging of horror and political milieus, wringing a bit of fun—and a whole lot of blood—out of one of the most chaotic and tragic periods of modern history.
A vigorous and immersive vampire tale set against the twilight of the Romanovs.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-62713-7
Page Count: 438
Publisher: KDK 12, Inc
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
This luxurious novel is set to take the world by storm.
The true story of Axis diplomats detained in the U.S. at the start of World War II is transformed into a dazzling historical novel set at a sumptuous West Virginia hotel.
Bestselling YA fantasy author Stiefvater’s adult debut introduces a writer whose prodigious imagination and distinctive prose style have combined to create a novel that will remind readers of why they fell in love with reading in the first place. At its center is the captivating June Hudson, an erstwhile Appalachian orphan who was taken in by the wealthy Gilfoyle family, owners of the Avallon Hotel & Spa, a high-society retreat built over underground mineral springs. At his death, the patriarch bequeathed ownership to his playboy son, Edgar, but made June the general manager, as she had spent her life learning the business—and also shared with Gilfoyle Sr. a rare gift relating to the “sweetwater” springs, a fantastical element of this otherwise realistic novel. Aside from the magical waters and a few other fanciful details, Stiefvater’s fictional world is based on extensive research into high-end hotels of the period, creating a version of luxury so appealing that readers will wish they could check into the Avallon and stay on indefinitely. In fact, the novel revolves around the true meaning of luxury. To June, it has nothing to do with wealth; it is more connected to joy, and to the book’s title: “June had long ago discovered that most people were bad listeners; they thought listening was synonymous with hearing. But the spoken was only half a conversation. True needs, wants, fears, and hopes hid not in the words that were said, but in the ones that weren’t, and all these formed the core of luxury.” Also brilliantly managed is the rest of the ensemble cast: sexy FBI agents; June’s inimitable staff; the delegations of Japanese, Germans, and Italians detained at the hotel, some quite nasty, but among them a strange, special, totally silent child. And on top of all this, a delicious love story!
This luxurious novel is set to take the world by storm.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593655504
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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