Kat’s fans will want to hang on for Book 4.
Romance, intrigue and scandalous magic among the mostly highborn in Regency England.
Kat’s out of sibling projects with Elissa married and Angeline soon to be; even her scapegrace brother, Charles, has reformed. Kat’s enemies have delayed her initiation into the Order of the Guardians that expelled her mother for practicing witchcraft, even though—or perhaps because—she unmasked a highborn traitor among them. She’s waiting for a portal to reach the Golden Hall, having sacrificed hers to save Charles. Angeline’s wedding to Frederick Carlyle at Hepworth, his family’s stately home in Devon, soon provides scope for Kat’s talents. En route, a suspicious accident overturns their carriage, yet Papa’s oddly uncomfortable when the Marquise de Valmont comes to their rescue. Attempts to sabotage the wedding continue at Hepworth. Is Mrs. Carlyle responsible? She’d prefer Frederick marry his cousin, Jane. When the Order’s portals are stolen, the unspeakable Lady Fotherington suspects Kat, whose own suspicions center on the angry, mysterious boy who’s been following her. Though Kat’s longing for the mother she never knew sounds a note of gravitas, the now-too-familiar characters and predictable plotting call for freshening. A final plot twist that moves the series action beyond lives of the rich and titled could do the trick next time around.
Kat’s fans will want to hang on for Book 4. (Historical fantasy. 10 & up)Pub Date: April 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4169-9451-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A spectacular return to a magical world.
Following the events of Impossible Creatures (2024), a devoted Guardian teams up with a brave princess to fight her power-hungry uncle and save the Archipelago’s dragons from a strange new threat.
Jacques the dragon summons Christopher Forrester back to the Archipelago from the human world: Dragons are dying, and no one knows why. Meanwhile, on the island of Dousha, Princess Anya’s grandfather, King Halam, has been murdered, and her father accused—though she knows he’s innocent. When Christopher and Anya take refuge on the islet of Glimt, the Berserker Nighthand helps them see how their twin missions to save the dragons and free Anya’s father are connected. They work together to create an antidote for the poison that’s killing the dragons and to keep Anya and her father safe from her murderous uncle. Meanwhile, Nighthand and Irian, the part-nereid ocean scholar, pursue their own important secret mission. Divided into three parts—“Castle,” “Dragons,” and “Revenge”—and containing elements of fairy tales, fantasy, and Shakespeare, this story continues the storyline established in the series opener, yet because it introduces new characters and obstacles, it could also stand alone. Dark-blond Anya (“five feet tall and all of it claws”) is a match for white-presenting Christopher, who, though he still misses Mal, finds that “it made a difference to have someone to move through the world with again. A friend changed the feel of the universe.” Mackenzie’s delicate, otherworldly art adorns the text.
A spectacular return to a magical world. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593809907
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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