Fans of magic-school tales and Norse mythology will adore this exceptionally detailed YA series opener.
A teen discovers her magical lineage and possible doomed future in this YA fantasy.
Thirteen-year-old Minerva Pearlstar lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her widowed mother, who barely makes ends meet working at Serenity Gardens Mortuary. The pair moves often to avoid discovery of the fact that Minerva can wield electricity with her hands. The girl believes that she’s a freak, but then an old man, accompanied by two ravens, invites her to the Asgard School for the Exceptionally Gifted in Midgard, Maine. He’s none other than Odin, the Allfather from Norse myth; Minerva is actually a heksen (or witch) demigod who’s been in hiding from a dark fate foreseen by the dangerous Nornir people. In Maine, Minerva is greeted by future roommate Alice Cleverly and “bear-mage” Markas Nightshade. Midgard is a tourist destination on the surface, designed like an old Viking village; secretly, its school trains heksen in spellcasting and gives them animal familiars. Minerva also gets a job at the You Only Die Once Funerarium, run by Baynard Nightshade. Just as Minerva begins to enjoy her new life, she learns that the complexities of her lineage lead to a scary place—the apocalypse known as Ragnarok. Riddle brings Harry Potter devotees a comforting magic-school tale based around Norse folklore and fairy tales. Minerva has plenty of odd quirks that make her easy to root for, including homemade clothing reworked from Halloween costumes. The plot’s most intriguing mystery is the whereabouts of the main character’s older sister, whom she’s never met. An extra touch of intrigue comes in the novel’s exploration of the funeral industry: You Only Die Once is a green business, and Baynard uses natural elements like cloves and vanilla, rather than toxic formaldehyde, to freshen corpses. This series starter spends a lot of time on worldbuilding, introducing such lore as an elf-mage war and a Blood Pact. Minerva also has a complicated relationship with nemesis Prince Thorn, and the two share a devastating kiss that foreshadows a deeper emotional struggle in the future.
Fans of magic-school tales and Norse mythology will adore this exceptionally detailed YA series opener.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-4030-6006-6
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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
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