The thrilling middle episode of a trilogy that delivers authentic character conflict.
In Dauphin’s (The Turquoise Tattoo, 2012) second installment of her Elementals of Aotearoa trilogy for young adults, an Australian teen who possesses elemental magical powers finds herself surrounded by intrigue, danger and romance in her quest to locate her birthparents and reach her destiny.
After discovering her elemental abilities, complete with electric anger storms and swirling hair, Scarlet struggles to get some sense of her new powers. Despite rules forbidding it, Scarlet magically tattoos the boy she loves, Sterling. The pair continues to quietly tango around their feelings in the wake of a friend’s kidnapping and torture at the hands of a demon, not to mention the taboo resurrection—resurrecting is evidently frowned upon—of Scarlet’s beloved pet. Scarlet must cope not only with her forbidden love for Sterling but with conflicted emotions about her father, the Lizard-god of the Dead. This volume traces Scarlet’s journey to find her birth mother, from whom she inherited the legacy of a Greenstone goddess, a gift that proves to be both a treasure and a curse. Also along for the ride is a new character, the delightfully troublemaking Mer, a distant relative with a hidden agenda, and a returning character, sinister Isaac, a dark figure who hides a tragic secret. While the trilogy’s setting in New Zealand provides an already exotic locale for American readers, the rich, original world of the Elementals, based on Maori culture and myths, provides an even more unfamiliar, exciting backdrop for the story. Despite a seemingly familiar supporting cast—the devoted love interest, the spunky sidekick, the father who lies to protect his daughter, and the quiet, supportive foster mom—Dauphin infuses each character with emotion and complex, sophisticated motives; it’s more J.K. Rowling than Stephenie Meyer. Scarlet’s story barrels forward in an adventure filled with action and suspense, hurtling toward a cliffhanger conclusion. Refreshingly, Dauphin favors plot-driven anguish instead of shallow, unfounded angst, which helps put this series on the upper tier of YA novels.
The thrilling middle episode of a trilogy that delivers authentic character conflict.Pub Date: April 28, 2013
ISBN: 978-1742843469
Page Count: 297
Publisher: BookPal
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2013
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
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