Showing posts with label Adventure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adventure. Show all posts

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Week 5: "Kirkus Style Review"

For my Readers Advisory class we were asked to provide a "Kirkus Style Review."  I have just finished Labyrinth as you can tell from a previous post.  This is what I thought of it:

A well-researched adventure stretched between 800 years, Labyrinth by Kate Mosse is sure to captivate and keep you on the edge of your seat as chapter by chapter, pieces of a puzzle are revealed.

Two women. Two time periods.  Brought together through dreams and blood.  Alice is in France to meet with a solicitor about an inheritance she received from an aunt she didn’t know existed.  While there she meets up with a close friend to volunteer at an archeological dig.  Alice stumbles upon a great secret contained within a hidden cave. The boulder that almost killed Alice and revealed the cave is just the first of many dangers she will have to evade. Alaïs is in the year 1205 during the crusades and subsequent Inquisition that led to thousands of deaths, she is one of the last guardians of the labyrinth.  Both, Alice and Alaïs are in danger.  In 1205 Aquitaine, there are men on a quest to rid the world of “heretics”—the French.    There are also those who would take the secrets of the labyrinth and use them for selfish and evil purposes or destroy them as a symbol of heresy thought to plague the land. Alice’s journey is to find the reasons behind her being hunted.  Alaïs must find a way to evade capture on multiple fronts.  Each must protect those secrets as people around her are killed for helping.

You’ll want to follow the characters of Labyrinth as they weave through time “Pas a pas.”  “Step by step.”  These words push the women forward as they evade capture and most certainly death at the hands of those whom should be their partners in truth and love during perilous times. 


Aside: Contains some sexual material.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Week 5: Annotation 2

Genre: Adventure / Fantasy
Publication Date: 2005
Number of Pages: 508
Geographical Setting: Present day (2005) France / Medieval (1205) Aquitaine
Serie: First in Languedoc Trilogy


Plot Summary: Alice is our present day character and Alaïs is from 1205 Aquitaine.  Alice is unwittingly drawn into a mystery of monumental importance to her past and future.  She has always had dreams of Alaïs not knowing who she is, assuming that it is herself staged in a time period during the middle ages.  When Alice stumbles on a cave with a ring and labyrinth during an archeological dig as a volunteer, things start to spin out of control and seemingly—time.  The reader is thrown from one time to another wondering how it is all going to come together and how the two characters are connected.  While people around them (Alice and Alaïs) are disappearing or killed they are each in danger as they discover treachery and narrowly miss their own demise.  Not knowing whom to trust, each must trust her instincts as she tries to conquer evil and her own fears.

What makes this book an Adventure?
·      Individual(s) overcoming challenges for a moral purpose
·      Foreboding and danger around every corner
·      Setting is in exotic places

Appeal:
            Pacing—Compelling.  Readers are drawn to read further in order to find out how the heroines get out of sticky and/or dangerous situations. 
            Tone/Frame—Mystical, exotic, and dark.  The novel borders on fantasy as the storyline travels between two different time periods.  Battles, destruction, and death surround the characters as they fight their way through to a victory over evil.
            Style—Complex and detailed.  While the setting varies between two different time periods, the author uses appropriate and detailed setting, characterization, and language to engage the reader. 

Read Alikes--
Agincourt
by Bernard Cornwell
**Detailed, fast paced,
suspenseful,
historical fiction
Green Darkness 
by Anya Setoff
**Time Travel of heroine
into exotic Europe
Outlander
by Diana Gabaldon
**Fast paced, time travel,
historical fiction
suspenseful