Fast, fun, and full of charm(s).
A coven of diverse modern-day witches must band together to discover their seventh and final member before they're hunted down.
Lucky St. James’ life has been anything but lucky. Born to the wildly iconoclastic and troubled Arnya, a member of Canada’s Indigenous Métis people, Lucky was largely raised by her paternal grandmother, Stella, after her mother’s early death and her father's disappearance "down an opioid drain hole." Now in her late 20s, she's trying to hold a job, manage Stella’s increasing dementia, and stare down her and Stella’s impending eviction from their Toronto apartment. Lucky’s life seems impossible—and then she finds the spoon. Tiny, ornamental, adorned with a witch caricature and labeled SALEM, the spoon seems nothing more than a curio, but, unbeknownst to Lucky, it marks her as the sixth and penultimate member of a coven of contemporary witches who are about to change her life forever. Meena, the descendent of one of the original Salem witches; Wendy, an Anishinaabe woman who has outgrown reservation life; Morticia, a goth terrified of aging into suburban femininity; Lettie, a young Creole mother fleeing an abusive relationship; and Freya, a trans girl from a fundamentalist Christian family, are ready to welcome both Lucky and Stella into their unconventional family circle, but there’s a catch. There's a seventh witch who must be located before the circle can be completed—but no one knows who she is, she could be anywhere in North America, and Lucky and Stella must find her within 17 days. As if this weren’t enough pressure for the bemused but hopeful Lucky and her relentlessly sprightly grandma, there's the added wrinkle of Jay Christos, a ruthless member of the ancient witch-hunting brotherhood the Benandanti who is hot on their tail. A propulsive read full of intriguing detail, this novel is well written, engaging, and, more than anything, enjoyable. If the dichotomy between the feminine (good) and masculine (bad) is a bit stark, this is made up for by the genuine affection the reader will feel for Dimaline’s irreverent, badass witches as they battle for the future of their family and the future of the world, one and the same in Dimaline’s inclusive vision.
Fast, fun, and full of charm(s).Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063054899
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
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
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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