Part historical, part fantasy, all top-notch queer romance.
A midsummer night’s Regency.
Miss Maelys Mitchelmore doesn’t understand why her dress is falling apart at a society ball. (It’s not even fairy-made!) Though the situation seems at first to be a social disaster, her predicament leads to adventure when Lady Georgiana, better known as the Duke of Annadale, comes to her rescue. Everyone fears the Duke, who became the sole heir to a dukedom thanks to a series of mysterious deaths. She doesn’t mind, as she is generally happy to be left on her own. Miss Mitchelmore, for her part, is grateful to be saved from ruination and then surprised when the Duke’s kiss on her hand leads her to a sudden realization that perhaps her lack of passion for any eligible young man this season (or last) is due to the fact that none of them are women. When Miss Mitchelmore is struck by yet another magical attack, she starts to look for the cause and to see if the Duke will help her fix it—assuming the Duke is not the cause herself. And so the story begins, accompanied by a great deal of additional commentary from our petulant narrator, Puck (yes, that Puck), recently banished from the court of Oberon, now forced to write to make ends meet. He proves to be an enchanting and delightfully petulant storyteller, repeatedly winking at the reader as the paranormal meddling continues and a beautiful romance between Miss Mitchelmore and the Duke begins to bloom. The cast is rounded out nicely by Miss Mitchelmore’s brother and best friend, both trying their best to help Maelys solve her magical mystery, but it may ultimately be only the women who can save each other. This is a lovely, pitch-perfect romance, with an alternate Regency setting that is well developed and has tremendous charm. The intimacy is relatively tame, for Hall, but the story still contains all the delicious tension and wry humor that he writes so well. Hall continues to prove himself to be one of the best romance writers working today.
Part historical, part fantasy, all top-notch queer romance.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780593497562
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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