Uneven yet enjoyable.
Talia and Wen’s nomadic life with the Wanderers is all they’ve ever known.
Sixteen-year-old Tal and her younger brother travel in a caravan of RVs. Hustling and stealing are their means not only to make a living, but to avoid Tal’s looming marriage by paying off the bride price that the camp’s Boss accepted. In South Carolina, the two try to con a preppy “mark” who knows a thing or two about hustling himself. Tal and Spencer soon fall for each other. The unlikely romance at the core of the novel is charmingly realistic, but unfortunately, the context feels artificial. A healthy suspension of disbelief is needed to accept the Wanderers’ reliance on “the Spirit of the Falconer” to protect them by sending warnings through owls, some falling from the sky. The Wanderers, while not identified as ethnic Roma, are known to the people of the towns they pass through as gypsies, and their portrayal plays into the stereotype of gypsies as swindlers with no moral compass. Tal and Wen have no compunction about conning people to maintain their lifestyle. Despite her outrage at “living in a society that buys and sells girls,” Tal still craves “the freedom, the fearlessness, the invincibility” of Wanderer life. The strength of this debut novel is in the tantalizing development of character and setting as the story unfolds and Tal seeks her path in life.
Uneven yet enjoyable. (Fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5107-0400-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Bound to be popular.
A suddenly trendy trope—conflict and romance between members of conquering and enslaved races—enlivened by fantasy elements loosely drawn from Arabic tradition (another trend!).
In an original, well-constructed fantasy world (barring some lazy naming), the Scholars have lived under Martial rule for 500 years, downtrodden and in many cases enslaved. Scholar Laia has spent a lifetime hiding her connection to the Resistance—her parents were its leaders—but when her grandparents are killed and her brother’s captured by Masks, the eerie, silver-faced elite soldiers of the Martial Empire, Laia must go undercover as a slave to the terrifying Commandant of Blackcliff Military Academy, where Martials are trained for battle. Meanwhile, Elias, the Commandant’s not-at-all-beloved son, wants to run away from Blackcliff, until he is named an Aspirant for the throne by the mysterious red-eyed Augurs. Predictably, action, intrigue, bloodshed and some pounding pulses follow; there’s betrayal and a potential love triangle or two as well. Sometimes-lackluster prose and a slight overreliance on certain kinds of sexual violence as a threat only slightly diminish the appeal created by familiar (but not predictable) characters and a truly engaging if not fully fleshed-out fantasy world.
Bound to be popular. (Fantasy. 13 & up)Pub Date: April 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-59514-803-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
Returning fans, anyway, will pounce.
Houck kicks off a new story arc in the world of the Tiger’s Curse series with new tigers who live in a northerly setting.
The death of their widowed royal mother touches off a crisis in the Kievian Empire; neither Stacia nor Verusha Stepanov, 17-year-old sword-wielding twin sisters, wants to be named tsarina. But questions of succession get put on hold when a battle with a sorcerer inexplicably turns the two into nonspeaking Siberian tigers. Hints of a cure send them, along with a growing entourage of men to provide assistance (and, perforce, do all the talking), on a long trek. Though most of the cast sticks to genre type, Houck throws in a wild card in the form of hunky, inarticulate Nikolai, who joins the quest because he is enthralled by Verusha—and who also killed his whole family in an act of revenge. Occasional anachronistic dialogue (e.g., “Are you ready, ladies?”) disrupts the tale’s generally earnest tone, as do the clumsy attempts at banter. A third tiger, snarky and blind but conveniently able to see through others’ eyes, trots in late in the story. The events in this setup volume unfold with many a flashback and change in point of view and head toward no sort of resolution—only the cave-dwelling White Shaman of the Tundra’s advice that further journeys are in the offing. The central cast in this Russian-inspired fantasy world presents white; the Indigenous population includes nomadic reindeer herders.
Returning fans, anyway, will pounce. (Fantasy. 13-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9798212221696
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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