Starred Kirkus Review!

I wrote a comment a while back about never knowing what the folks at Kirkus Reviews were going to make of any novel. It's a sentiment that I've heard others express before too. Truth be known, though, I think we are all quite happy when Kirkus comes through, which they have for Acacia: The War with the Mein.


I'll include what they said below, but I wondered what you all think about the danger of these pre-pub reviews being spoilers? It's hard for me not to want to get the word out that the reviews are coming in strong. I've waited so long to be at this stage. On some other discussion boards, though, I've seen a few people writing that they think the reviews so far have said too much. And that even the jacket copy on the arc gave away too much. Gives me pause...

I do end up thinking, though, that the "spoiler" information given in any of these early reviews is minimal. Yes, it does give away a death of a major character, but in terms of the arc of the book the death of that major character is really where the story begins. It's the reason for the many pages of drama that follows. I don't know how we could present any information about the novel without putting this fundamental premise out there. So, if you do read it know that all that's revealed is just the start of the story to come. And if you don't need to read it but still want to buy the book... Well that's even better!

Okay, all this is a preface to the joyful news that Acacia has received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. Here's what they said...

Something genuinely new from the author of historical novels about the black American experience (Gabriel's Story, 2001; Walk Through Darkness, 2002) and the Second Punic War (Pride of Carthage, 2005).

Volume One of a planned trilogy, it's set in a fictional empire, the Known World, whose political center is the fertile and temperate island realm of Acacia, ruled by King Leodan Akaran. He's a compassionate monarch who sincerely mourns his beloved wife and dotes on his four vibrant children: stalwart Aliver, his ingenuous brother Dariel and their sisters, headstrong Corinn and stoical Mena. Yet Leodan has inherited his wealth and power from "a slaving empire…[that] traded in flesh…[and] peddled drugs to suppress the masses. Opposition to Leodan's ostensibly benign reign appears at the outset, as Thasren Mein, one of three brothers who effectively rule a distant (and impoverished) northern wasteland, travels in disguise to Acacia to assassinate his people's longtime enemy. From every corner of the Known World, tribes and enclaves ally themselves with Akarans or Mein, and gradually assemble into battle positions. Meanwhile, a plan conceived long ago by Leodan and now orchestrated by his Chancellor Thaddeus Clegg (one of several characters possessed of divided loyalties) sends the royal children away, into separate adventures and ordeals: Mena among a remote island culture's sinister priesthood; Dariel as a warrior member of Rebellious Outer Island Raiders; Corinn as the mistress of Machiavellian Mein Chieftain Hanish; and Aliver as the hero he was bred to become, challenged to defend his people in single combat. The novel's strong echoes of Homer and Virgil, Tolkien, Norse mythology's Twilight of the Gods and America's compromised history as a republic built on slavery fuse into an enthralling, literate and increasingly suspenseful narrative.

Heavy going, but Durham has imagined its landscape and ethnography in persuasive detail. Many readers will eagerly await the continuation of Acacia's story.