Romantic Times: Award-winning Harrison is back with the second half of her intense, dark and enthralling duology, which features the climax of an ancient ongoing war. The various characters in these novels have been fighting for so long it has damaged them on many levels. Harrison’s ability to craft multilayered characters as well as a believable, absorbing mythos makes her one of the best in the business.
Booklist: It’s only natural to approach a new novel by the author of Empire State (2011), Seven Wonders (2012), and The Age Atomic (2013) with wide-eyed enthusiasm and a childlike sense of eager anticipation, and Christopher fulfills our expectations and more: just when we think the story couldn’t get any weirder, he adds a whole new layer of weird, bouncing from one unexpected moment of goofiness to another, keeping us stuck to our chairs until we think it’ll take an industrial-strength solvent to pry us loose. Days after finishing the book, you’ll still have a grin on your face.
Booklist: Jacob’s The Twelve-Fingered Boy (2012) was exactly what the teens-with-powers subgenre needed: a fullbody beat down that reminded us that having such powers would really, really suck. This hefty sequel follows 16-year-old delinquent Shreve, who can possess people’s bodies, as he shifts from juvenile facility to psych ward to, at last, the Society of Extranaturals, a boot camp of sorts for “post-human” kids run by the highly untrustworthy Mr. Quincrux. Continue reading »
Romantic Times: After her father’s death, Catherine Meriweather is still adjusting to her cousin Edmund becoming the master of Meriweather Hall. Helping her with this is Jonathan Bradby, Edmund’s friend. Jonathan is a hero, or so they say. He knows his heroic act was just an accident. Instead of continuing to try and convince his friends of that, he decides he will just become a real hero by accomplishing a heroic act. Continue reading »
The Guardian: In All Is Fair by Em
ma Newman (Angry Robot, £7.99), the third volume of the Split Worlds trilogy, our reality is mirrored by a magical realm called the Nether, where decadence and luxury are a thin veneer over a corrupt and iniquitous society. Feisty protagonist Cathy, the Duchess of Londinium, capital of Nether, investigates the disappearance of her governess and attempts to bring about equality for women. Continue reading »
Publishers Weekly: A blistering pace and a stomach-turning homicide-for-hire scheme rockets Laukkanen’s third thriller featuring the detective odd couple of Carla Windermere and Kirk Stevens (after 2012’s Criminal Enterprise) from Minneapolis to grungy venues all over the United States. Since Windermere, a gorgeous African-American FBI agent, and Stevens, a middle-aged and married investigator with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, first worked together, they’ve stayed close—though not as close as both suspect they easily could be. Continue reading »
New York Times: Steve Weddle’s writing is downright dazzling in COUNTRY HARDBALL (Tyrus Books, cloth, $24.99; paper, $16.99), a first novel told in intertwined stories that present a shattering portrait of a depressed rural area on the Arkansas-Louisiana border that seems to be reverting to its wilderness state. Several of the narratives are seen through the eyes of Roy Alison, fresh out of prison and looking to start a new life. Continue reading »
Booklist: Cia is now a First Year student at the University. Her memory of the Testing has been erased, but the messages she left herself in her Communicator nurture her unease and distrust as she enters this new phase of her education. Although hoping to study engineering, she is instead assigned to the Government Studies program, where she distinguishes herself during the Induction period. Continue reading »
Kirkus: It’s 1879 in this alternate America where the Civil War still drags on, though both sides are utterly spent, Lincoln survived the assassination attempt (he’s confined to a wheelchair, however), and President Ulysses S. Grant has taken to the bottle, having despaired of politics in general and of the loathsome politicians that swarm around him. Young ex-slave and irascible genius Gideon Bardsley has invented a calculating machine, the Fiddlehead, that predicts disaster for both warring sides—but not by military means. Continue reading »
Booklist: When Penelope Sparrow wakes up in the hospital, she’s told she fell 14 stories and is lucky to be alive. But with bruises and pain and a broken bone, Penny faces the possibility of life without dance. All Penny ever wanted was to be a dancer, but her five-foot, eight-inch stature and wide hips (despite a lifetime of eating just enough “to stay on the right side” of anorexia) meant rejection from the traditional five-foot, five-inch and 95-pound-worshiping dance world. Continue reading »