A fantasy adventure that builds thrillingly on its predecessor.
In this middle-grade fantasy sequel, Bialys’ (The Chronicles of the Virago: The Novus, 2018) heroic teens continue protecting twin infants who are destined to usher in a golden age.
Thirteen-year-old Makenna Gold is the Virago, “tasked by the forces of good” to protect her twin 14-month-old siblings, Emilyne and Noah. She’s aided by an enchanted lowrider skateboard called “the Redeemer” and three fairy mentors: Marigold Frith and Bree and Dee Delphine. One night, in the Pasadena, California, home that she shares with her parents and siblings, Makenna receives a visit from the Grim Reaper. He warns her, “You are dangerously close to being one of my clients.” The next day, she learns that her school has won the Roosevelt Meir Award, which allows the school administration to send her; her best friend, Stephen Levine; and their classmates Heather Stern, Elise Green, and Sam Taylor on a three-week educational trip to China. Parents will chaperone them, and the London-based Natasi Foundation will pay all expenses. However, it turns out that this foundation is run by the foul Sir Malvado Seaton, who will do anything to kidnap the twins. Numerous “Efflusyum decoys” throughout the world prevent Seaton from tracking Makenna and the twins’ exact location, so he plans to lure them to a place where his operative, the sinister and effective Mr. Xshun, can dispatch the Virago. Also gunning for her is Ms. Creante, a disguised Alghanii demon who’s already failed to defeat Makenna once. Thankfully, help awaits the teen at Nanjing University in the form of Tai-Pan, an Air Elemental who will train her to use the Redeemer in more advanced ways. For this series’ second installment, Bialys deploys more bombastic wit and skillful plot twists. He provides heaping portions of weirdness—such as a talking worm named “Fluffy”—while also guiding characters through incredible transformations. Tai-Pan, a sly transplant from classic literature, is a pleasant surprise, and Mr. Xshun harbors a centuries-old secret that enables a gripping action sequence. Young genius Sam is a fun font of knowledge; for instance, he lets the other kids know that the name “Natasi” is “I Satan” backward. Stephen pitches in with his powers of clairvoyance, but the best help that Makenna receives is Tai-Pan’s advice to never “take a life in anger.” Bialys trusts his young audience to handle some graphic moments, including Ms. Creante’s demonic transformation with “her skin falling away like paper, blood seeping in pools onto the dirty pavement.” There are some religious themes; for example, “blood metal,” derived from the nails used to crucify Jesus Christ, is employed to create an “anti-weapon” to counter the Redeemer. Heather, though frequently off-page, is a memorable character when she does appear; at one point, for instance, she’s determined to go on a shopping spree, “crisis or not.” Bialys’ joy in bringing this world to life is clear and remains his greatest strength. The epic closing events lead organically to a planned third volume.
A fantasy adventure that builds thrillingly on its predecessor.Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2018
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 255
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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