A solid series entry that takes its characters in exciting new directions.
A team of feisty, superpowered teenagers fights to prevent a global war in this YA SF sequel to Extant (2019).
Newland follows up her solid debut with an even more engaging second installment, which starts with Natalie Morrigan, Tawney Davis, Owen Johnson, and Brant Smith on the run from the cultlike, totalitarian Nautilus organization. They’re currently holed up in a new safe house, a lighthouse called Ancora III, with their dogs, Enzo and Angie. They have no idea what happened to their friend Leo Merrick, and they’ve also lost their beloved mentor, Natalie’s uncle Christopher Reyes. Natalie struggles with her inability to control a unique, newfound time-traveling power known as “tacking,” and she also keeps a secret from her friends—that they’re all adopted—believing they need to hear the truth directly from their parents. However, Nautilus, bent on world domination, is still holding their parents hostage. When her friends insist on attending a large festival in Florida to blow off some steam, Natalie reluctantly agrees. When the event turns out to be a Nautilus recruiting fair, the four hatch a plan to infiltrate its headquarters by posing as new trainees. Meanwhile, Leo finds himself on the other side of the ocean, severely wounded and in the care of three strange sisters who have their own good reasons to hate and fear Nautilus. The narrative alternates between Natalie’s and Leo’s points of view, and the author deftly fills in the relevant background details while jumping right into the current action. Unexpected new angles on familiar characters and intriguing new players, with their own surprising secrets and quirks, add depth to the story. Plenty of action pulls the reader along, moving from the lighthouse to St. Augustine, Florida; Paris; Scotland; Iceland; and the Chesapeake Bay, and from Métro to bicycle to private jet. The plot avoids the open-ended middle-of-a-trilogy trap, providing a satisfyingly complete story arc while also building on the debut and setting up an intriguing premise for a third novel.
A solid series entry that takes its characters in exciting new directions.Pub Date: April 4, 2021
ISBN: 9781733345842
Page Count: 390
Publisher: Hiking Hedgehog Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters.
Two young people save the world and all the magic in it in this series opener.
When tall, dark-haired, white-skinned Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in Scotland, he ventures to the top of a forbidden hill and discovers astonishing magical creatures. His grandfather explains that Christopher’s family are guardians of the “way through” to the Archipelago, where the Glimourie Tree grows—the source of glimourie, or the world’s magic. Black-haired, olive-skinned Mal Arvorian, a girl from the Archipelago, is being pursued by a murderer, and she asks Christopher for help, launching them both on a wild, dangerous journey to discover why the glimourie is disappearing and how to stop it. Together with a part-nereid woman, a ratatoska, a dragon, and a Berserker, they face an odyssey of dangerous tasks to find the Immortal, the only one who can reverse the draining of magic. Like Lyra and Will from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mal and Christopher sacrifice their innocence for experience, meeting every challenge with depthless courage until they finally reach the maze at the heart of it all. Rundell throws myriad obstacles in her characters’ way, but she gives them tools both tangible (a casapasaran, which always points the way home, and the glamry blade, which cuts through anything) and intangible (the desire “to protect something worth protecting” and an “insistence that the world is worth loving”). Final art not seen.
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593809860
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
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