The mystery is tense and nerve-wracking, and the acrobatics are gorgeously hair-raising; they will help readers get past...
Family secrets and sinister superstitions threaten 16-year-old wire walker Jules Maroni’s chance at a big break.
Jules doesn’t understand why her family lets some old rivalry with the Flying Garcias keep them from the glamorous Cirque American. Something bad happened between Jules’ grandmother and the legendary trapeze artists when Nan was young, but now the Amazing Maronis have a chance—possibly the last—to leave obscurity and gain the recognition their talent deserves! When the Maronis finally join the Cirque American, Jules is dismayed that everyone in this new circus seems to hold the same grudge as Nan. Worse, the dreamy boy she meets is none other than Remy Garcia, scion of her family’s archrivals. Jules is determined to gain the admiration of her fellow performers, so she performs a series of increasingly dangerous wire acts. While Jules’ perspective of her daredevilry is not in the slightest bit frightening, the narration is nonetheless heart-stopping; readers might find themselves checking their own footing. A mysterious stalker leaves Jules a series of increasingly disturbing artifacts—a flower, a peacock feather, a circus trunk—and Nan is convinced the objects are cursed, leaving Jules and Remy determined to get to the bottom of their grandparents’ possibly mystical rivalry. When tragedy inevitably strikes, the impact is blunted, as the secondary characters (or Jules’ feelings for them) are little more than the barest sketches.
The mystery is tense and nerve-wracking, and the acrobatics are gorgeously hair-raising; they will help readers get past thinly developed characters and setting . (Thriller. 13-15)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4778-4782-4
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Skyscape
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 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
Nasty Prince Henry of the Seelie Court has come to Avalon, the city caught between the human realm and Faerie, to invite...
At last, Dana meets a Fae boy who doesn't want to sleep with her in this third in the Faeriewalker series, which began with Glimmerglass (2010).
Nasty Prince Henry of the Seelie Court has come to Avalon, the city caught between the human realm and Faerie, to invite half-human Dana to be formally presented at Court. Dana and her father are sure there's a deeper game at play—don't both Fae queens want Dana dead because of her dangerous Faeriewalker powers?—but she has no choice but to obey the summons. The journey from the incongruously modern Avalon (why do Faeries celebrate Christmas?) to the Seelie Court is chock-full of all the necessary adventures, from monster attacks to opportunities for heroic self-sacrifice. Dana finally exercises both her magical powers and her intelligence in order to help herself and her friends. And of course, there's plenty of opportunity for chest thumping among her various suitors. Dana's youthful narrative style can be disconcertingly at odds with the steaminess she describes ("I was smushed up against him… [and] painfully aware that he, uh, enjoyed having me there"); this realistic teen heroine has an occasionally bumpy meeting with romance conventions. But Dana's grim-but-hopeful interactions with her alcoholic mother ground this urban fantasy in a welcome verisimilitude.Pub Date: July 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-57595-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
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