Kirkus: Urgently written with forthright prose, the memoir’s serpentine suspense elements resemble the plot points seen in the kind of crime fiction the author writes herself….A potently rendered chronicle of rape and the clarity and closure achieved even when justice is only partially served.
Publishers Weekly: McCammon’s rousing sixth yarn featuring Matthew Corbett (after 2014’s The River of Souls) transports the early 18th-century American problem solver across the Atlantic to London, where he’s clapped into hellish Newgate Prison on murder charges. Matthew quickly becomes embroiled in mysteries involving fellow inmate Daniel Defoe; a gin-running street gang, the Black-Eyed Broodies; a kidnapped Italian opera singer; and a masked avenger named Albion, whose exploits are sensationalized (along with Matthew’s) in a penny dreadful broadsheet, the Pin—all the while with Matthew’s patron, Hudson Greathouse, and Matthew’s sweetheart, Berry Grigsby, in hot pursuit. McCammon’s intricate and intersecting subplots keep the story twisting unpredictably, and he adds menace to the mayhem with hellish descriptions of London straight out of a Hogarth engraving: all bawds and brutes a-wallow in the squalor of the city’s seamy street life. Fans of the series will race through this hefty page-turner to see where Matthew’s latest adventure leads him.
Publishers Weekly: As with Anatomy of a Misfit (2014), Portes’s second YA novel has a seductive zaniness and almost unstoppable exuberance. Sixteen-year-old Willa Parker, a small-town girl and native Iowan, reluctantly heads east to a fancy New England boarding school, where she meets Remy Taft, an infamous student from a famous family, who adopts Willa like she’s a wide-eyed puppy. Though it takes some wading through Willa’s mile-a-minute internal monologue in the opening chapters, once her adventures with Remy begin, the story turns into a heartfelt, hilarious thrill. Willa’s dry observations can be laugh-out-loud funny (“I’m not sure what the cutoff point is for gyrating in sparkly clothes, but I can tell you some of these people are really pushing it,” she says of the crowd at a Brooklyn club). But Willa’s early announcement of a plan to kill herself and other foreshadowing hint that Portes’s characters are careening toward tragedy, with Remy at the center of a brewing storm. Willa’s memorable voice and humor, as well as her longing to cultivate relationships that will anchor her more firmly to the world, will linger with readers.
Kirkus: See the girl on the train, the white one “with the frizzy red hair and funny mouth”? That’s 16-year-old Willa Parker. Willa has a simple two-point plan: move to the East Coast…and kill herself.
Willa leaves her hometown of What Cheer, Iowa (you heard that right), to attend The Pembroke School and (presumably) go on to Princeton, because her wealthy economist mother (who divorced Willa’s father and left them with nothing) says she “should.” Willa’s plan is derailed when she meets the ultraprivileged, uber-hip Remy Taft (yes, related to the president), the oddly friendless queen of Pembroke. The girls develop a close friendship, complete with witty-cute banter, a late-night joy ride on a stolen golf cart, and frequent Ecstasy trips. As Remy pushes Willa out of her comfort zone, Willa forgets her suicide plan, but it soon becomes apparent self-absorbed Remy has several secrets of her own. As Willa tries to save her best friend from destroying herself, she’s also figuring out whether or not she’s neighboring Witherspoon Prep hottie Milo Hesse’s girlfriend. Surrounded by wealth, Willa often questions the unfairness of privilege; her scholarship status and Midwest origins often make her feel inferior and out of place. Her first-person narration is self-deprecating, deeply thoughtful, and thoroughly funny, with a sometimes-chiding direct address that pulls readers into her confidence.
Snarky and painfully astute. But in a good way.
B&N SFF Blog: Bishop has built a fascinating world, populated it with unforgettable characters, and set them crashing together in exciting action sequences, all while slowly teasing out an overarching plot that is poised for explosive expansion and raising enough questions that we simply must keep reading to find out what happens next. […] This is a series that welcomes binge-reading, actively rooting for your heroes, booing and hissing at the villains you love to hate, and throwing popcorn at the screen when the other shoe finally drops, and drops, and drops.
B&N SF&F Blog: Bishop’s fourth entry in the complex Others universe sees things getting increasingly tense between humanity and the Others, even as the latter’s alliance with the human blood prophets led by Meg Corbyn promises a brighter future for both. Treaties start to unravel when the radical group Humans First and Last steps up attacks on the Othersbut their brutal efforts begin to wake forces more powerful and more ancient than the shape-shifters and vampires, putting both humanity and the Others in danger, one Meg’s power of prophecy may not be able to neutralize in time. Bishop brings a wealth of rich detail to her universe, taking cues from today’s headlines and using them to create a fictional setting that feels all too real.
Shelf Awareness: Shaun David Hutchinson’s bracingly smart and unusual YA novel blends existential despair with exploding planets.
We Are the Ants deals with loss, and it doesn’t pull any punches. There are no easy solutions, and the book is refreshingly upfront about the fact that some kinds of pain–like Henry grieving his boyfriend’s suicide, his father’s absence and his grandmother’s Alzheimer’s–just have to be slogged through. However, Ants is not depressing. It’s wonderfully written, and humor is woven throughout, including an aside on the uselessness of alien nipples. Henry is gay, but there’s no angst over that at home. His family is completely fine with it, even his macho, difficult brother. The novel is occasionally brutal–the opening line is “Life is bullsh*t”–but Henry is a thoughtful and compassionate protagonist. As the threads of the story come together, he slowly starts to realize how many people in his life care about him. He may even consider the possibility of caring about himself.
Publishers Weekly: In the beginning of this new full-length entry in Wells’s Raksura series (following 2012’s The Siren Depths), the entire community of Indigo Cloud, home to a shape-shifting race called the Raksura, has a nightmare of their world being destroyed by their archenemies, the predatory Fell. To prevent that, Jade, Moon (her consort), and other Raksura must join a group of archaeologists from several races to investigate an ancient site that could destroy them all. After setting up the danger, the novel takes too long to get the questing party to the mysterious island, losing its impact among vague distrust, political squabbles, and minor dangers that overshadow how unearthly this world is. However, when the Fell do show up and bring a new wrinkle to their characterization, the dramatic battles, tough decisions, and character dynamics shine through. Filtering the story mostly through the semi-outsider Moon, Wells overcomes pacing flaws to keep this series going strong with an imaginative world of engaging characters.
Shelf Awareness: Robert Jackson Bennett’s sequel to 2014’s City of Stairs is thrilling, deeply thoughtful about the nature of war, and just odd enough, while still offering analogues to our own world to remain familiar.
Discover: This excellently plotted sequel to City of Stairs mixes science and the divine and meditations on the nature of war, and has a satisfying, exciting conclusion.
Library Journal: VERDICT In Bishop’s fourth dark fantasy adventure (after Vision in Silver), the stakes have grown higher. There are plenty of parallels to draw between current events and Bishop’s alternate world, but it is the stories of the characters woven through the action that keep the books fresh. Vivid worldbuilding and myth creation are Bishop’s strengths, and this title is a welcome addition to the series.
Things are coming to a head for the terra indigene and the humans who live around the Lakeside Courtyard. With long-held treaties frayed and extremist organizations such as Humans First and Last expanding, Simon Wolfgard, head of the Lakeside Courtyard, and Meg, the blood prophet, must decide whom they will protect and whom they can trust. As increased attacks by the radical human groups become more deadly, Meg’s warnings don’t always arrive in time. What the humans have forgotten is that the shapechangers and vampires they deal with are not the strongest powers, and these ancient forces are ready to take back what once belonged to them.