Atmospheric and beguiling.
Old traditions and folk stories are not just tall tales in Comeau’s historical fantasy novel.
It’s the 1820s, and 16-year-old Morrigan Lane is living with her family in a small village in Ireland. With so many in her town heavily relying on fishing as both a food and income source, Morrigan dreams of sailing the sea and taking up the trade, but it’s not something women are allowed to do. While taking one of her frequent walks along the coast, Morrigan is struck by a vision of a man in a chariot with a sword at his side, calling out to her from the sea. The villagers whisper that she has seen Manannán mac Lair, Guardian of the Otherworld, one of the creatures from myths and folktales told years ago. Morrigan’s father thinks she may have “the sight,” as it runs in their family, but this will not help her in a world where women are only meant to be good Catholics and quiet wives. Worried about her future prospects and not wanting to stifle her, Morrigan’s mother sends her daughter to study with The Crooked Woman, Cathleen, who is the town go-to for remedies, medicines, and midwifery. It’s Cathleen who believes and calms Morrigan when a wolf comes and speaks to her, calling her An Fhoínse (a “spring from which the life force flows”). The Otherworld knows of Morrigan’s empathy and feeling for nature and her reverence for life, and it needs her help to flourish—but hiding her visions and calling from the Church and her frightening schoolmaster, Winnett, will be a difficult task. In this fantasy novel, Comeau uses the Irish setting—which always feels a little magical on its own—and tales of the Otherworld and Tuatha dé Danann to craft an ethereal, fablelike narrative. Morrigan, as well as her friends, family, and fellow villagers, come alive on the page, fitting perfectly into the picturesque village, a bulwark against the giant, tumultuous world around them—and the creatures that inhabit it. Morrigan’s frustration with the imposed limits on her gender adds a fascinating dimension to the spooky tale.
Atmospheric and beguiling.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781961905450
Page Count: 358
Publisher: 12 Willows Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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