REVIEWS

Kirkus Reviews

HEARTSTAR BOOK ONE: THE KEY MADE OF AIR

In Book One, a young woman attempts to save a faerie realm in this otherworldly fantasy.

Maintaining a modest but stable business selling vegetables at a market stand, Emma Cameron has all the trappings of a normal adult life. But when things in her quiet town of Oakham start to go eerily wrong, beginning with the mysterious death of the local blacksmith, she faces the astounding but unavoidable truth that she is not wholly of this world—and that malicious entities from the beyond have set their sights on her. With the help of Trevelyan, an odd but benevolent faerie, she comes to realize that she is not only part supernatural, but that she is the last living warrior in a group of four, dispatched to the Earth by a council of the faerie realm in an attempt to save Earth from sinister spirits hoping to make it their own. Charged with the task of assisting Trevelyan in his endeavor to save the rulers of Gorias, the High Faerie city of Air, from destruction as they remain confined in the likenesses of dolls, Emma seeks out a precious, powerful sapphire capable of solving the predicament. But she’s thwarted by devilish agents—among them, incubi, succubi and the wealthy Giles Kingsbury, a satanic pedophile into whose blood-riddled and sadistic rituals Emma and her cohort are eventually drawn. With this first book in the HeartStar series, Thompson reveals in arresting detail all the components of Emma’s strange new reality, from the environment of the faerie realm to the grotesque terror of the demons who seek to obliterate it and Earth. All the while in this fast-moving, playful novel, Emma confronts not only a chaotic future but an uncertain past as she discovers the role these malignant forces have played in her life.

A satisfying start to a phantasmagoric adventure for fans of occult fiction.

HEARTSTAR BOOK TWO: THE GATES TO PANDEMONIA

In Book TWO, the brothers of Kilfenora are sent on a mission throught the faerie world to save the House of Air.

Irishwoman Emma Cameron is a warrior for the House of Air in the mortal world. While she and the faerie Trevelyan strive to save Gorias, the High Faerie city of Air, brothers Kilfannan and Kilcannan, also representing the House of Air, battle sinister foes in the faerie realm. The brothers fight the forces of Cathac, “the enemy of love and the destroyer of the Green.” The siblings’ adventure begins when the goblin Grad and an evil knocker (sorcerer) named Aeguz accost Kilfannan in a market. In struggling with the pair, Kilfannan finds that the knocker wears the star emerald of the House of Air on a necklace. He further learns that the fiend acquired this treasure from the mortal O’Shallihan, who lives at Lake Carn in the Crystal Mountains. Later, the brothers team up with the wizard Ke-enaan to locate the stolen key of Air, which can unlock a coach within which sit two porcelain dolls. Trapped inside the dolls are Niamh and Caiomhin, who constitute the HeartStar and facilitate the creation of the Green in the mortal realm. In her second installment of this fantasy series, Thompson doubles-down on the elements of Irish myth and phantasmagoria that enliven her complex narrative. Casual readers of fantasy should not miss the first book in the series, as this skein of magical worlds sometimes reads with encyclopedic density. The separation of the HeartStar, for example, “gave rise to…Niahm of the Air Rising into Space, and her consort, Caiomhin of Air Falling into Fire in the fifth dimension.” Nevertheless, the main story remains a straightforward riff on The Lord of the Rings, throughout which a band of travelers skirts ever present danger for the sake of a world-changing artifact. A mighty cliffhanger, however, should bring the casts of the first two novels together in the third.

An exacting, myth-infused adventure in a magical realm for fans of classical fantasy.