In contrast to the first installment, there is very little entertaining interaction between the immortal Beauchamps and...
Second in de la Cruz’s increasingly convoluted mélange of witchcraft and Norse mythology, set in fictional North Hampton, Long Island.
When we last saw Joanna Beauchamp and her witchly brood, the sacred bridge, Bofrir, had been destroyed, and the sun god, Fryr, aka Joanna’s son Freddie, was blamed, because his signature trident (now missing) was found at the scene. Although it was clear then that the trickster god, Loki, was the real culprit (isn’t he always?), the Valkyries consigned Freddie to Limbo, from which he has recently escaped. He’s now holed up in North Hampton’s no-tell motel (dubbed the Ucky Star for its missing neon letter). His twin sister, Freya, love goddess and mixologist extraordinaire at the local watering hole, is bringing Freddie food and trying to clear his name. Her boyfriend, Killian (the god Balder who is Loki’s nemesis from way back), bears a trident-shaped mark—could he have framed Freddie? Joanna's oldest, Ingrid, aka hearth-deity Erda, has her own challenges: Her nascent romance with aptly named policeman Matt Noble is about to founder on her intractable virginity. Not only that, thieving pixies have invaded North Hampton, and Ingrid is hiding them in her mother's attic until she can discern how to cure their amnesia and return them to their home in another dimension. In a forest near the Beauchamp house, Joanna happens upon a burial mound and some runes. Could this be the final resting spot of a kindred spirit, hanged during the colonial witch hunts, and if so, why hasn’t she been reborn, like Freya and Ingrid, who died in Salem? Only a trip back in time can solve these enigmas.
In contrast to the first installment, there is very little entertaining interaction between the immortal Beauchamps and their human neighbors, and the Norse arcana is about as exciting as a romp through Tolkien’s Silmarillion. Readers can, nevertheless, look forward to Book III, which promises to place the Beauchamps back in the 17th century where all their troubles began.Pub Date: June 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4013-2396-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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