The best news this book delivers is that we’ll likely be seeing more from its vivid cast.
Be warned: This is a follow-up to Lovecraft Country, the 2016 novel, not the HBO adaptation, so what you saw on TV won’t help much here. But there’s still outrageous trickery, sharp period detail, and chilling perils.
The year 1957 finds Chicago’s roving Turner and Dandridge families once again pursued by and in pursuit of mystic forces, some of which mean to do them serious harm. Atticus Turner and his father, Montrose, are in Virginia looking for evidence of their Black slave ancestors when they’re suddenly under attack by a White antagonist they’d previously faced several hundred miles north in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Hippolyta Berry, Atticus’ aunt and the most scientifically minded family member, is way out west in Las Vegas with her 15-year-old son, Horace, and good friend Letitia Dandridge, ostensibly to gather research for her husband George’s The Safe Negro Travel Guide while also meeting with a sinister pawnbroker who carries the keys to a device able to transport people from Earth to any far-flung place in the galaxy. Meanwhile, George Berry, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, makes a Faustian bargain with the ghost of Hiram Winthrop, the brilliant, malevolent scientist from Lovecraft Country who promises to provide George with a cure if George can find a cadaver for Winthrop to—what is the word?—reanimate. And then there’s Ruby Dandridge, Letitia’s sister, still leading a double life as a redheaded White woman named Hillary Hyde, whose supply of potions enabling her transformation is running dangerously low. And those are just some of the complications of what now seems an ongoing series of phantasmagoric adventures of these intrepid warriors fighting a two-front battle in mid-20th century America against White supremacy and dark magic. Where its predecessor was constructed of separate stories focusing on different family members, this book operates with more interwoven narratives that Ruff manages to yoke together into one ripping yarn with shocks and surprises at every turn. This sequel may lack some of the demented grandeur that the TV series cheekily borrowed from its namesake, but it’s still lots of fun—and, at times, historically enlightening.
The best news this book delivers is that we’ll likely be seeing more from its vivid cast.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-063-25689-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A well-constructed and enjoyable conclusion.
In the conclusion to the Emily Wilde trilogy, a Cambridge professor of dryadology—faerie studies—prepares to live her research as never before.
Previously, in Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (2024), Emily poisoned Queen Arna, the usurping stepmother of her faerie-prince fiance, Wendell Bambleby, and found a gate to Wendell’s lost kingdom; naturally, the process of establishing a new monarchy in a quixotic faerie realm will be far from smooth. Unfortunately, Arna is not quite dead; she is using her poisoned, liminal state to blight the very landscape. Emily must employ her specific mortal skills (academic research and unrelenting resolve) to find the faerie lore that best describes their current situation, picking out the clues within scraps of old tales to locate the hidden, dying queen, and deal with her in a way that doesn’t lead to further damage. Although much of what she learns is grim, Emily forges on, determined to discover the path to a happy ending for herself and Wendell, where she can be the faerie queen she never imagined she’d be (and is frankly quite uncomfortable being). Thankfully, this concluding volume isn’t the feared retread of the previous two, both of which involved Emily’s research in remote European locations and her efforts to get on with the human locals, even while her obvious neurospiciness and deep understanding of rules allow her to deal with faeries more effectively than most mortals can. This installment makes effective callbacks to the previous two, while moving the story forward as Emily, despite the concerns of her mortal friends, tries to make a place for herself in a dangerous new world where not all of her subjects are prepared to take her seriously. Janet of Carterhaugh merely had to drag her lover Tam Lin from a horse to secure her happiness from a vengeful faerie queen; Emily has to put in real work, using her brain and plunging into physical danger to earn her future. The result is far more satisfying and believable, despite being mainly set in a fantastical world.
A well-constructed and enjoyable conclusion.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593500224
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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