A slow but delightful fantasy with a likable and powerful young heroine.
A Texas teen learns that her new school houses a secret society that trains students with special abilities in this debut YA novel.
Phoebe Douse—pronounced “like Zeus, but with a D”—loses her beloved grandmother Naan. Shortly before her death, Naan assures her granddaughter that Phoebe has great (but still unknown) abilities. Phoebe guesses she may have precognition, but once schoolmates hear this tidbit, she becomes an outcast, from middle school all the way to high school. So when she receives admittance to The Murray School in Scotland, despite not even applying, Phoebe is all too happy to accept. It’s a typical school except that a handful of students have abilities, such as knowing what others are thinking. A couple of the teachers, too, are unusual. Dr. Braithwaite teaches chemistry but focuses on strange concoctions like Bobalgong and Totosol. As it turns out, the Secret Society for Special Abilities and Artefacts invites gifted students to The Murray School for potential training. Phoebe is indeed precognitive and capable of even more. But then so was Cara, a former student who inexplicably vanished. Phoebe; her roommate, Zoe Houlihan; and other new friends delve into the Cara mystery and uncover a few of the school’s dark secrets. Though the different special abilities are all familiar (for example, channeling spirits), the gradual reveal of each student’s skill is a treat. Nevertheless, Phoebe, the ever humble and appealing protagonist, has the best ability. As she doesn’t fully understand it, she, like readers, is surprised by certain things she can do. In this fantasy tale, Samuels sets a leisurely pace and thoroughly develops the characters. This enhances the mystery, as it often involves trusting or distrusting fellow students and faculty members. The author rounds out her tale with increasing suspense (disappearances within Phoebe’s small group of pals) and a continually evolving backstory starting decades earlier and including Naan and the secret society’s genesis. As this is a series launch, the novel ends with copious material for sequels.
A slow but delightful fantasy with a likable and powerful young heroine.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73228-466-1
Page Count: 342
Publisher: Valued Educational Services, LLC
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
Bulky, balky, talky.
In an updated quest for the Holy Grail, the narrative pace remains stuck in slo-mo.
But is the Grail, in fact, holy? Turns out that’s a matter of perspective. If you’re a member of that most secret of clandestine societies, the Priory of Sion, you think yes. But if your heart belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, the Grail is more than just unholy, it’s downright subversive and terrifying. At least, so the story goes in this latest of Brown’s exhaustively researched, underimagined treatise-thrillers (Deception Point, 2001, etc.). When Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon—in Paris to deliver a lecture—has his sleep interrupted at two a.m., it’s to discover that the police suspect he’s a murderer, the victim none other than Jacques Saumière, esteemed curator of the Louvre. The evidence against Langdon could hardly be sketchier, but the cops feel huge pressure to make an arrest. And besides, they don’t particularly like Americans. Aided by the murdered man’s granddaughter, Langdon flees the flics to trudge the Grail-path along with pretty, persuasive Sophie, who’s driven by her own need to find answers. The game now afoot amounts to a scavenger hunt for the scholarly, clues supplied by the late curator, whose intent was to enlighten Sophie and bedevil her enemies. It’s not all that easy to identify these enemies. Are they emissaries from the Vatican, bent on foiling the Grail-seekers? From Opus Dei, the wayward, deeply conservative Catholic offshoot bent on foiling everybody? Or any one of a number of freelancers bent on a multifaceted array of private agendas? For that matter, what exactly is the Priory of Sion? What does it have to do with Leonardo? With Mary Magdalene? With (gulp) Walt Disney? By the time Sophie and Langdon reach home base, everything—well, at least more than enough—has been revealed.
Bulky, balky, talky.Pub Date: March 18, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50420-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
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