An original and fascinating take on the romance of Arthur and Guinevere.
A modern woman becomes an integral part of King Arthur’s court in Lafferty’s time-traveling romance.
Twenty-two-year-old Vera is living with her adoptive parents, the proprietors of the George and Pilgrims Hotel in Glastonbury, and grieving the loss of her love, Vincent, whom she met two years earlier at university in Bristol. (Their blissful life together ended when he was killed four months ago in a car crash.) When a stranger comes to the hotel claiming that Vera is actually Guinevere of Arthurian lore, and that she urgently needs to come back to the time of King Arthur to save the future of England, her sense of self is totally upended. The stranger is Merlin; using a “a magically stabilized wormhole,” he transports himself and Vera to Camelot. Arthur, Lancelot, Gawain, and other well-known figures of Arthurian legend are present and fleshed out in charmingly modern ways. Humorous situations abound as Vera must navigate a world she knows little about: She struggles to control her swearing, which is quite out of character for Guinevere; she also teaches the Knights to play poker and suggests that they use a round table. These amusing threads compellingly contrast with the pressure on Vera to be “a vessel for Guinevere’s memories,” concerns about the power and loyalty of Merlin and the other mages, and the chaos being incited by Arthur’s nemesis Mordred and the Frankish Kingdoms. All of this is overlaid with an engaging burgeoning romance between Vera and Arthur as Vera comes to accept herself as “broken and messy and utterly, wondrously human” and learns to use the magical power she has. Debut author Lafferty successfully weaves together multiple genres in this story of King Arthur’s time as seen through the eyes of a modern-day Guinevere. Like Vera, the reader does not have to be an expert on Arthurian legend to follow the story. The fresh takes on legendary characters and propulsive plot twists make this a page-turner that will leave readers hoping for a sequel.
An original and fascinating take on the romance of Arthur and Guinevere. (historical fiction, romance, time travel)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9798990020108
Page Count: 536
Publisher: Avalon Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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