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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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