Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Shannon's debut, The Bone Season (2013), delivered readers to a tyrannical, near-future London, where clairvoyants are forced to live in an Underground where competing gangs are ruled by ruthless mime-lords and mime-queens who control their turf and underlings with terrifying spirit powers. Shannon's voyant hero, young dreamwalker Paige Mahoney, has miraculously escaped from a penal colony run by the Rephaim, bloodthirsty yet regal creatures from the Netherworld, and now reluctantly resumes her position as second-in-command to mime-lord Jaxson Hill. Even though she is London's most-wanted fugitive, Paige refuses to play it safe, courting danger repeatedly as a freedom fighter facing insane odds. Absurdly brave and fantastically gifted psychically and physically, Paige is a scrappy, righteous, and strategic warrior. Between battles, she commissions the writing of a penny dreadful about the Rephaim, a clever variation on the pamphlets used in revolutions past, and risks all by deciding to trust Warden, her former Rephaim captor. Shannon creates vividly dilapidated, macabre, and mysterious worlds both urban and within the dreamscapes Paige valiantly enters. The motley, elaborately costumed characters are compelling; the nonstop, often eerie action is riveting. And the story reverberates with echoes of the slave trade, industrial servitude, and classic gangster drama, all intensified by keenly imagined otherworldly combat. A Clockwork Orange meets A Tale of Two Cities meets Harry Potter in this clever, caring, and spellbinding tale, which promises more to come. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The Bone Season was a sensation, and a six-figure global marketing campaign will ramp up excitement as Shannon's exceptional fantasy saga continues.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This intricate second installment in Shannon's ambitious seven-book series, after 2013's The Bone Season, follows dreamwalker Paige Mahoney, a peculiarly opaque protagonist, after her daring escape from the penal colony of Sheol I. Now on the run from Scion, the organization that controls the London of 2059, Paige's only hope for survival is to return to the Unnatural Assembly, those who control the community of clairvoyants who rule London's underground. In order to destroy Scion and alert her fellow voyants to the existence of the mysterious, often malevolent Rephaim, she decides to seize control of the Assembly and become the new Underqueen of the syndicate. To do that, she'll have to truly master her powers, avoid relentless authorities and occasional hit men, and possibly betray those closest to her. Though the story starts slowly, it quickly picks up speed, racing toward broadly telegraphed plot points in unexpected ways. Shannon's world-building is original and intriguing, especially the complex, almost mythic voyant underground. However, this installment does rely heavily on knowledge of the previous one. Agent: David Godwin, David Godwin Associates. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Paige Mahoney, aka the Pale Dreamer and recent escapee of the penal colony Sheol I, is back in her beloved London, but her situation is far from ideal. Branded as Scion's most wanted, she is forced to go back to Jaxon Hall, her former mime lord, and resume her life as his mollisher so the syndicate will protect her from Scion. But when syndicate Underlord Haymarket Hector and his entire gang are brutally murdered, both Paige and Jaxon see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity Jaxon wants to be the new Underlord, and Paige thinks she can finally turn the self-serving, corrupt syndicate toward her cause of bringing down Scion. What Paige doesn't know is that, just as in Sheol I, things in the syndicate are not at all what they seem, and when Warden and his Rephaite allies return, Paige once again finds herself the leader in a fight to change, and quite possibly save, the world. VERDICT Full of the action, turns, and surprising revelations that readers have come to expect from Shannon, this new installment ends on a wholly unexpected twist. [See Prepub Alert, 4/21/14.] Elisabeth Clark, West Florida P.L., Pensacola (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Paige Mahoney, the Pale Dreamer of The Bone Season (2013), returns in this second volume of a projected seven-volume fantasy/science-fiction epic. The novel begins with Paige's escape to London as she eludes pursuers of all stripes and becomes public enemy No. 1. On the plus side, she's with a gang of clairvoyants, and her cohort is headed by Jaxon Hall, one of the mime-lords of the title. (Mime-lords and mime-queens are leaders of clairvoyant gangs who form a subgroup within the various cohorts.) London becomes the main setting of the novel, and it assumes various guises, some comforting but most harrowing. Cohorts inhabit spaces that seem vaguely familiar (Covent Garden, Camden Town, Soho) yet remain mysterious and sinister. Readers of the first volume might also remember the emphasis on a specialized and arcane vocabulary applicable to the alternative universe the author creates. The glossary is again a welcome necessity. The prime mover of action here is Paige's relentless pursuit by Scion, a governmental organization that sees her as a threat to its status and power. Eventually Paige meets up again with Arcturus Mesarthim, her Warden and a Rephaitea physically immortal being. He has some advice for herto be wary and to "manipulate [her] mime-lordas he has spent his life manipulating others"good advice for a world that is arcane, complex, multilayered and at times almost incomprehensible. Shannon's prose style is serviceable, but her legion of fans will once again be here for the propulsive plot rather than lyricism. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
