A thrilling mystery and multiple love interests leave plenty to explore in the next book.
It's hard to tell fae from foe in this sprawling second entry in the Cainsville series, set in an eerie, insular town.
After finding out that her birth parents are serial killers, former socialite Olivia Taylor-Jones is adjusting surprisingly well to life in Cainsville, taking a chance on a sexy biker, Ricky Gallagher, while assisting hard-bitten attorney Gabriel Walsh at his firm. When Liv finds a dead body in her car, and then it mysteriously vanishes, she mistakes it for an omen, a side effect of her fairy heritage that gives her visions of black dogs and other symbols of The Hunt from Celtic mythology whenever death is near. But when the body identified as Ciara Conway reappears in another location, Liv is not the only one who sees it. Whoever is repurposing the body to scare Liv is one hell of an embalmer, and it’s a stretch to imagine a killer lugging dead weight through a small town without being caught. Liv has to separate fact from fairy lore to find the connection between Ciara’s murder and the townspeople who know more than they're letting on. With such secretive characters, the worldbuilding seems to happen in reverse—Liv has yet to break into the town’s inner circle to understand how their magic works. Meanwhile, Gabriel hides his feelings for Liv by camping out on her couch when danger lurks, and a strange friendship develops. Liv’s ex-fiance, James, is trying to win her back for all the wrong reasons and is going after Gabriel to do it. But Liv doesn’t believe everything she hears, and when she’s not plagued by disturbing visions, she’s letting the wind blow through her hair from the back of Ricky’s motorcycle while she figures it all out. She may be a pawn in a supernatural game with an unclear set of rules, but Liv proves she has moves of her own.
A thrilling mystery and multiple love interests leave plenty to explore in the next book.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-525-95305-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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
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