Skillful story weaving insures that readers will only know the answers to the book's questions at the end.
A practitioner of white magic becomes embroiled, against her will, in the Guy Fawkes conspiracy.
In this latest of Carroll’s popular series featuring witches, good and evil, of late-Renaissance Europe, the protagonist is Meg Wolfe, the recently anointed Lady of Faire Isle. Although her mother, the late Cassandra, leader of the sinister Silver Rose coven, had tried to groom Meg as her successor sorceress, Meg opted for the Lady’s mostly benign duties, leading an isolated group of “cunning women,” healing with herbs, and undoing spells cast by bad witches. When she’s summoned to Brittany to investigate a demonic possession, she is enlisted by an English knight, Sir Patrick Graham, to lift a curse plaguing King James. Once in London, escorted by Patrick and his friend, the dissolute but charming physician Armagil Blackwood, Meg regrets leaving the serenity of Faire Isle. Dreams and other clues reveal to her that Sir Patrick may actually be Robert Brody, whose twin sister was burned at the stake for witchcraft years before, along with an old crone, Tamsin, who had believed the condemned duo would be pardoned by James. When James demurred, Tamsin cursed him and the Stuart line from the pyre. Could Patrick be using Meg to win the king’s confidence while plotting treasonous vengeance? Outwardly loutish but secretly sexy Armagil tries to warn her, but when he touches a poisoned Silver Rose found in the garden of her lodgings, she is distracted by the need to save his life then consummate their mutual attraction. When Patrick catches them together, he’s incensed, but his accusations hint at fears Meg already harbors. What if Cassandra isn’t dead after all? What if her coven has returned, bent on declaring Meg their all-powerful queen, Megaera? What if Guido (Guy) Fawkes’ gunpowder goes stale before he can blow up Parliament?
Skillful story weaving insures that readers will only know the answers to the book's questions at the end.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-345-50295-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Roberts does it again with this fast-paced romantic mystery that's both steamy and thrilling, despite its somewhat obvious...
Beautiful Italian babe with a passion for fire and doomed hunks joins the arson squad and discovers that someone has held a torch for her since she was a child.
When Reena Hale is 11 years old, she watches her family's Baltimore pizzeria go up in flames. Thanks to a local arson detective, John Minger, and the girl's keen memory, police determine that a neighborhood crook whose young son had recently attacked Reena was out for revenge, and soon cops publicly haul the dirt bag off to jail. The large and loving Hale family bands together and rebuilds; Reena grows up curious about the origins of fire. She attends college and, after her boyfriend dies in an accident, joins the police force and learns the inner workings of the fire department. Eventually, she teams with Minger to solve the city's suspicious fires. Meanwhile, over the years, a shady character has been hiding in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to violently sabotage Reena's relationships (usually with the help of explosives). Somehow Reena doesn't put together that all of her boyfriends have been in the path of catastrophic (occasionally deadly) events, so her stalker hits the phone lines to clue her in with dirty messages that become more and more intimate. When Reena launches a torrid love affair with her new neighbor, whose truck soon explodes, she begins to get it. Fearing for her family's safety, Reena reopens past cases and learns that her troubles started when she was a child. The tale builds to a breathless climax as she (literally) races to beat out the flames of one fire before determining where the next one will be set.
Roberts does it again with this fast-paced romantic mystery that's both steamy and thrilling, despite its somewhat obvious nature.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2005
ISBN: 0-399-15306-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005
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