Readers who stick it out to the action-packed climax will be curious about what's coming next
The first of a two-book adventure series sends a gifted warrior-in-training out into the desert to die.
In a fantasy world with the flavor of the Central Asian steppes, Raim is a 15-year-old nomad determined to join the elite forces of the Khanate. Since he was a child, he's been best friends with the Khan's heir, and if he passes his tests he'll be young Khareh's most trusted fighter. He need only make an Absolute Vow, an oath sworn on a knot. If the maker of a knotted promise is forsworn, the knot burns a hideous scar on the oathbreaker's body, and a grotesque shadow appears, haunting the breaker of the promise and causing his countrymen to drive him into the wilderness. With a loaded gun like that hanging on the wall, readers know it will soon be fired. Yet when Raim does set a promise knot afire, it's through no choice of his own but from some terrible misadventure. If he can only survive the shame of banishment, the desert's poisonous bugs and the city of the oathbreakers, Raim can learn his terrible family secrets—except those best left for the sequel. Worldbuilding grows through exposition that plods as slowly as Raim's trudge through the sands.
Readers who stick it out to the action-packed climax will be curious about what's coming next . (Fantasy. 13-15)Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7387-4405-6
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Flux
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
There’s some originality here, though it’s hard to unearth amid all the melodrama
An illegitimate girl who hopes to find her creative passion may be connected to another kingdom’s magical history.
At 10, white, orphaned Brienna was brought to Magnalia House. For the last seven years she’s studied to become an arden, an apprentice passion, with the goal of finding her patron. The arden-sisters study art, dramatics, music, wit, and knowledge; Brienna, who has no true vocation, has eccentrically studied in all the fields. Though she doesn’t truly belong among the talented (and somewhat racially diverse) noble girls of Magnalia House, they are her beloved friends. Perhaps once she’s passioned, she can even act on her romantic feelings for the white knowledge master. But Brienna’s having strange visions lately; could they be ancestral memories of an unknown forbear from the neighboring country? What with romance, jealousy, family drama, betrayals, ancient magical history, and characters with multiple secret identities, there’s a nigh-constant pitch of throbbing…well, passion. A voice is like “tamed thunder,” and hair is like “a stream of silver.” Malapropisms abound (“punctures of laughter”; “her beauty warbled by the mullioned windows”). Oddly, most of the shocking revelations of back story are openly detailed in the lengthy family trees at the novel’s opening.
There’s some originality here, though it’s hard to unearth amid all the melodrama . (Fantasy. 13-15)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-247134-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
The Salt trilogy closes with a third generation of children fighting petty but dangerous evils. Hana, a girl from the city's wretched Bawdhouse Burrow, is orphaned when her mother is burned as a witch. Ben grows up far from the city, raised by his grandparents Pearl and Hari in the idyllic village from Gool (2010). When Hana flees the city, she brings with her a terrifying message for those outside its darkness: The Limping Man is coming. He has the terrible power to make people love him even as he torments them, and he plans to wipe out all who stand against him. Since most of the outsiders—Ben's family, the forest Dwellers and "the people without a name"—have mental powers, the Limping Man intends to massacre them. Ben and Hana, along with their allies, must find the Limping Man's secret in order to save their own lives and homes. Ben and Hana’s victories, like those of their parents and grandparents, are local. Even if they do defeat the Limping Man, they cannot vanquish evil from the world; life in the burrows will likely continue to be nasty, brutish and short. The heroes' personalities are defined by their harsh environments, but they reach beyond those limitations. Fantasy heroes who can save only themselves and their loved ones are a welcome change from the usual. (Fantasy. 13-15)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55469-216-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
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