A substantive and enjoyable fantasy featuring colorful characters, a real-world setting, and the believable journey of a...
A teenager who refuses to believe a prophecy that he will be New York’s next superhero faces dark events and otherworldly messengers in this second volume of a middle-grade series.
It isn’t necessary to have read Janney’s (The Phantom of New York—Volume I, Peter and the Crown, 2017, etc.) first fantasy installment to enjoy this eventful sequel, but it will deepen readers’ experience to know just how 13-year-old Peter Constantine began his odyssey to supernatural crime fighting. Of Greek descent, the teen lives with his father, Manos, and mother, Jovanna, at The Crown, a luxury hotel in New York. The family fled there when a dangerous fugitive known as The Client threatened to murder Manos for reporting his criminal activities to the police. Manos serves as The Crown’s building superintendent; Jovanna labors in the hotel’s laundry; and Peter, who feels an odd affinity for the hotel, is being mentored by a magician, an etiquette maven, a boxing coach, and a circus blade-thrower. Among the teen’s peers are a spunky girl from India; a video gamer from Japan; and a kind, rich white girl. Hawkins, who is black, brilliant, and homeless, lives part-time with Peter’s family. Peter, who secretly thwarted an attack on the hotel by The Client and his Red Masque syndicate in the first book, still disbelieves the hotel ghost’s pronouncement that he has been chosen as the next Phantom, a legendary superhero. His reluctance to accept his fate may frustrate some readers, but within these supernatural trappings, Janney has deftly crafted the coming-of-age story of a young teen whose innate good character and experiences in the real and magical worlds are preparing him for the future. With humor, imagination, and fine-tuned suspense, the author mixes in bullies, a Phantom wannabe, a mouse-turned-faery, circus animals, a mysterious key, a sword with strange qualities, and a ghostly twist. When a circus troupe moves into the hotel, Peter and his friends act on the boy’s suspicions that The Client and the Red Masque are hiding within the company, attempting to find treasures rumored to bestow magical powers on the finders. The surprise conclusion hints at a third book to come.
A substantive and enjoyable fantasy featuring colorful characters, a real-world setting, and the believable journey of a young protagonist to a magical destiny.Pub Date: Dec. 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-981419-20-3
Page Count: 350
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Harry Potter–like threads spun into a fresh, enjoyable mix of magic and mystery.
A teenage orphan enters a curious school and encounters mysteries and dangerous secrets in this first installment of a debut YA fantasy series.
Life in Croswald is about to change for 16-year-old orphan Ivy, a lowly castle maid in charge of the kitchen “scaldrons,” oven-heating, fire-breathing dragons. Fleeing the castle after a messy scaldron mishap, Ivy hops a strange conveyance that transports her to a school for potential quill-wielding, spell-casting “scrivenists.” (The author’s creative language—students are “sqwinches,” and “hairies” are lanterns housing fairies with luminous hair—is one of the book’s pleasures.) Learning that there is more to her gift for sketching than she realized, Ivy studies spells and the magical properties of inks and quills, but strange things keep happening. Why is an old scrivenist, long thought dead, working in secret? Why is the head of the oddly familiar school moving paintings to the “Forgetting Room” so that no one will remember they existed? How can Ivy get a look at a certain journal stored there, and what does it have to do with her recurrent dream? And why has Ivy drawn the interest of the Dark Queen of Croswald and her truly fearsome Cloaked Brood? The intrigue is layered with such whimsical inventions as one school lunchroom run by ghostly bad cooks and another by a jester who is best avoided, scrivenists who end their lives as tomes in a library, and small houses pulled by a gargantuan flying beast with its own weather system. Yes, there are many Harry Potter–ish elements: a school for young wand-wielders, quirky shops dealing in enchanted student supplies, eccentric characters, spells gone wrong, an evil pursuer. But Night’s blend of magic, danger, and suspense (and a touch of steampunk) is a well-realized, fresh fantasy world all its own, and Ivy is an appealing protagonist of relatable complexity. A few bobbles: Ivy seems to go without food for long stretches; the use of “effected” rather than “affected”; a professor who is both standing and perched on a chair.
Harry Potter–like threads spun into a fresh, enjoyable mix of magic and mystery.Pub Date: July 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9969486-5-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Stories Untold Press
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this riveting futuristic novel, Spaz, a teenage boy with epilepsy, makes a dangerous journey in the company of an old man and a young boy. The old man, Ryter, one of the few people remaining who can read and write, has dedicated his life to recording stories. Ryter feels a kinship with Spaz, who unlike his contemporaries has a strong memory; because of his epilepsy, Spaz cannot use the mind probes that deliver entertainment straight to the brain and rot it in the process. Nearly everyone around him uses probes to escape their life of ruin and poverty, the result of an earthquake that devastated the world decades earlier. Only the “proovs,” genetically improved people, have grass, trees, and blue skies in their aptly named Eden, inaccessible to the “normals” in the Urb. When Spaz sets out to reach his dying younger sister, he and his companions must cross three treacherous zones ruled by powerful bosses. Moving from one peril to the next, they survive only with help from a proov woman. Enriched by Ryter’s allusions to nearly lost literature and full of intriguing, invented slang, the skillful writing paints two pictures of what the world could look like in the future—the burned-out Urb and the pristine Eden—then shows the limits and strengths of each. Philbrick, author of Freak the Mighty (1993) has again created a compelling set of characters that engage the reader with their courage and kindness in a painful world that offers hope, if no happy endings. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-439-08758-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
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