Unconvincing characters can’t bring to life a historical novel that reads more like a fantasy.
A pivotal figure in Mexican history is the subject of a novel that combines historical fiction and fantasy.
The woman known as La Malinche lived five centuries ago but remains a controversial figure in Mexican culture. One of the Nahua people of the Gulf Coast, she was given as a slave to the Spanish explorer Hernan Cortes and became his interpreter and adviser in his conquest of the Aztec emperor Moctezuma. La Malinche is a complex symbol, seen by some as a victim of colonialism, by others as a traitor to her people, and by yet others as a founding mother of today’s Mexico. This novel, a fictionalized version of her life, won’t settle any arguments. Indeed, it hardly reads as a historical novel—it’s more of a fantasy adventure. Its narrator is called Malinalxochitl at birth, after a mythical warrior goddess whose very name is so fearsome that people hesitate to speak it, so she’s nicknamed Malinalli. The book begins with her childhood, spent with her doting, aristocratic parents and her bold twin brother, Eagle. But that cozy idyll ends when her family is shattered by the political machinations of Moctezuma, in the far-off city of Tenochtitlan. Malinalli is sent to the Temple of the Eighteen Moons, a haven and school for girls and women, where she is educated mainly in magical pursuits—taught not just to embroider fine cloth but to make needlework that comes to life, birds and butterflies fluttering off the fabric. She learns other, more powerful skills as well, and she makes fast friends but nurses a vengeful hatred of Moctezuma, especially after he’s responsible for another death of someone dear to her. The plot follows what we know of the real events of La Malinche’s life only vaguely, and there’s little sense of place or of everyday life in 16th-century Mexico. But the book’s biggest flaw is the flatness of its characters, especially Malinalli herself, whose voice seems to remain that of an adolescent even as she’s exposed to (and takes part in) brutal violence. That embroidery turns out to be the most lifelike thing in the book. No doubt there is a compelling novel to be written about La Malinche, but this isn’t it.
Unconvincing characters can’t bring to life a historical novel that reads more like a fantasy.Pub Date: March 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781668009017
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Primero Sueño Press
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
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
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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