An intense, engrossing read that never loses sight of its passionate characters’ humanity, especially when they’re at their...
In 1454, conflict between the once-inseparable Lada, Radu, and Mehmed comes to its inevitable bloody fruition.
Prince Lada Dracul consolidates her power to stand against the Ottoman Empire’s demand that Wallachia return to being a vassal state. She does this both by stirring up trouble in other states and by her usual brutal violence—so brutal that Sultan Mehmed, busy rebuilding newly-conquered Constantinople, must respond. Meanwhile, Radu struggles with his part in Constantinople’s fall and his guilt over Nazira and Cyprian, who vanished after sailing away. To bring Lada to heel, Mehmed sends Radu to capture her so they can negotiate; Lada also plans to kidnap Radu, viewing him as fundamentally hers. Neither gets what they want. The subsequent invasion features force that is massive on Mehmed’s part and depraved on Lada’s. Mehmed may have the money and numbers (compared to Lada’s shaky alliances), but Lada is clever, terrifying, and has cultivated a near-worship among the peasants whose lots she’s improved—even as she turns her country into a giant deathtrap. Politics, battle strategy, and betrayals thrill, while the toxic dynamic keeps the focus on the intrinsically linked trio. Most characters are Central or Eastern European or Turkish; Islam has a positive portrayal, as do same-sex relationships.
An intense, engrossing read that never loses sight of its passionate characters’ humanity, especially when they’re at their worst. (map, dramatis personae, glossary, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 15-adult)Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-553-52239-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped.
When the veil between life and death is torn, threatening everything and everyone she loves, Célie is determined to take “till death do us part” as a challenge, her role as Bride of Death notwithstanding, in this sequel to The Scarlet Veil (2023).
Célie’s life has very abruptly gone to hell in a handbasket. She’s been turned into a vampire and abandoned by the mysterious and infuriatingly alluring man who turned her. Fearful of hurting her friends, she can’t eat or sleep, and she loathes herself and what she’s become. Célie is also being haunted by her late sister, Filippa. The dead are walking, something is going wrong with magic, and Death himself has manifested in corporeal form to claim his due. Only Célie can mend what’s been broken—but at what cost? This sequel picks up without much time spent reorienting readers to plot points or character dynamics. As in the first book, the drama spools on for too long, only properly picking up momentum about two-thirds of the way through the book. What starts as a slow-burn romance soon becomes quite the opposite, and although the stakes are generally higher than before and there are some very touching moments, the narrative never quite comes together in a satisfying way, and the worldbuilding and characters feel shallow and lack sufficient context. Most characters are light-skinned.
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped. (Paranormal. 16-18)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063258808
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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