A colorful read with some rough edges but entertaining throughout.
In 1899 London, the scion of a banking family abandons his wastrel life for a lowly job with the firm that draws him deep into supernatural oddities.
Busy, busy, busy. First there’s Liss, who's known for his historical mysteries but who has also written middle-grade science fiction and Marvel stories—14 full-length novels since 2000, plus short fiction and comic books. Then there’s his latest, a historical fantasy that combines the worlds of high finance and occultism, specifically the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and aberrations such as lycanthropes, ghostly slashers called Elegants, and women giving birth to rabbits. The hero is Thomas Thresher, age 23, who has been doing little beyond gambling and whoring when he’s forced to take a junior clerk’s post with the family bank and get engaged to the daughter of a Jewish businessman (Liss expends an unpleasant amount of ink reflecting period-appropriate antisemitism). With the proposed nuptials and the bank’s problems in mind, Thomas stumbles on puzzling purchases of debts and London buildings. His investigations lead him to a Golden Dawn gathering, which includes William Butler Yeats, Bram Stoker, and Arthur Conan Doyle. He also meets Aleister Crowley, who becomes an ally, as well as a woman who has turned wolflike, while Thomas himself has green leaves growing on him. Many such Peculiars have appeared in London recently, along with a thick fog that has nasty tendrils, all of it tied perhaps to real estate and mystical portals. There are signs of haste in the writing, and Thomas’ frequent bouts of self-doubt slow the pace, but Liss tells his story well, with some nice Dickensian surprises. What’s most fun is when he snaps off a comic line that plays on the absurdities involved: “Yes, he is becoming a plant, but he comes from an excellent family.”
A colorful read with some rough edges but entertaining throughout.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-61696-358-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Tachyon
Review Posted Online: July 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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