Intrigue abounds, but too much is left to the reader’s imagination.
In this fantasy debut, a group of teens prepare for war against the evil magician who killed their parents.
Thirteen-year-old Kara lives with a strict but loving adoptive family. One day, they reveal to her that she has an aunt named Annie. Once they meet, the vibrant woman tells Kara that she can explain why the girl went up for adoption and how there are other orphaned teens who are likewise special. Kara is intrigued because she’s levitated her MP3 player and experienced dreams that felt like memories. She travels with Annie to an island sanctuary protected by magical wards, where she meets her uncle Paul as well as fellow orphans Seth, Phillip, and Scarlet, among others. Kara learns that her parents, Myra and Frank, were powerful users of both black and white magic—but they were killed in battle against the dark magician Tallemar. The pressure on Kara mounts when she discovers that she’s the result of specific magical bloodlines and must lead the charge against Tallemar and his minions. Unbeknownst to Kara, her parents didn’t die; they were shunted to an alternate reality, a barren wasteland that nevertheless allows them to see into Kara’s world. Can this heroic girl magician master the powers that flow through her in time to thwart Tallemar’s plans? Eubank’s debut fantasy, which begins a new series, explores family dynamics with a careful eye to the psychology behind good, evil, and states between. The prose, consisting almost entirely of dialogue, has a clean, hypnotic cadence that draws readers into Kara’s world. This world, however, lacks a firmly described setting, and substantial dramatic arcs are missing. Instead, Eubank uses vast swaths of dialogue to hash out the characters’ pasts and possible futures. This will frustrate fantasy fans hungry for detailed settings and action. Surprise revelations spice up the tale, but by the end, the novel feels more like an overlong prologue. Eubank seems almost hesitant to have anything actually happen to her characters.
Intrigue abounds, but too much is left to the reader’s imagination.Pub Date: June 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5049-1905-0
Page Count: 274
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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