A pleasantly intriguing adventure in an exciting new fantasy world.
In this first volume of VanBrakle’s fantasy series, a young misfit is manipulated into going on an adventure that will alter his fate—and that of his world—forever.
Orphan Iren Saitosan has grown up alone in the highest tower of Haldessa Castle in the land of Lodia. He’s an abused outcast for one particular reason: he’s left-handed. In the culture of Lodia, Lefts are a rarity and thought to be full of the devil’s magic. Iren, however, is mostly full of teenage mischief. When one of his pranks nearly kills Lodia’s heir and military leader, Amroth Angustion, he’s given one choice to avoid execution: join Amroth, his loyal soldier Balear and a mysterious old woman named Rondel on a quest to destroy a bandit lord who has been terrorizing Lodia and who may have killed Iren’s parents. However, the quest isn’t entirely what it seems, and soon, Iren finds himself tangled up in a power struggle that could result in the destruction of the entire world. In the end, he’ll need to discover who he truly is and embrace the strange magic that comes with being a Left—which lies in his father’s old sword. Throughout the novel, there are plenty of dragons, elfin woodland creatures and vicious orclike monsters to enchant the average Lord of the Rings fan. Debut author VanBrakle is clearly an honor student of the fantasy genre who understands the importance of creating a dense, detailed mythology. His gift for creating complex female characters is all too uncommon in fantasy literature, and drunken warrior woman Rondel is a particular standout. Young hero Iren is believably impetuous and immature without being too irritating. Once readers get over the initial silliness of the idea of left-handed people as a rare species with special powers, the many twists and turns of the plot will make it easy for them to fall deep into the world of the Dragoon saga.
A pleasantly intriguing adventure in an exciting new fantasy world.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989195706
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Arboreal Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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