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DAUGHTER OF ISIS

Name: DAUGHTER OF ISIS
Author: Lilian Nirupa
ISBN: 978-0-595-45682-6

A NOVEL OF THE EGYPTIAN RENAISSANCE

by Lilian Nirupa ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 2007

A meandering and overindulgent book that spends too much time on the intricacies of Egyptian mysticism.

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A mystical tale about a gifted princess living at the twilight of the Egyptian Empire.

Lizla is the last in a line of powerful rulers in the Egyptian Empire. Her father, a mighty Pharaoh, was killed years before while protecting his empire from foreign invaders, and his legacy of peace and union is of great importance to Lizla. She feels the weight of her responsibility and talents at an early age. She begins training with the famous priest Ra-Ta, who recognizes her supernatural gifts and the ability to transcend the corporeal world. The priest guides Lizla into a trance, where she speaks with the Goddess Iris, her spiritual predecessor. Under Ra-Ta’s instruction, she takes residence at the Temple of Love, where she immerses herself in mystical teachings and is surrounded by other gifted students. At the Temple, she reunites with her estranged childhood love, Mikos, who is at the Temple to study medicine. All is not well at the Temple of Love, however–during a stroll through the grounds, Lizla overhears several high-ranking officials discussing an invasion from hostile foreigners. Unfortunately, the issue of the invasion never gets fully resolved, and the story becomes bogged down in tangential explanations of Egyptian philosophy and mysticism. Much of the story is spent describing Lizla’s supernatural experiences, but these become too frequent and episodic, and as a result, the story stalls at points. For the book to achieve that special, ethereal nature that other spiritual tomes achieve, the prose needs to take on a more reserved and Spartan tone, and the reader left to do his own thinking.

A meandering and overindulgent book that spends too much time on the intricacies of Egyptian mysticism.

Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2007

ISBN: 978-0-595-45682-6

Page Count: 167

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

LITERARY FICTION

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CONCLAVE

by Robert Harris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 22, 2016

An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...

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Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.

Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”

An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.

Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016

Categories:

GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | LITERARY FICTION | RELIGIOUS FICTION | SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE

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THE SECRET HISTORY

by Donna Tartt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 1992

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The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.