Genre: Historical Fantasy
Published: October 2, 2023
Pages: 339
Magic isn't the only thing he inherited!
Trick rider in a traveling circus, seventeen-year-old Vandemere (Vandy) Petruska is caught between two worlds. As Vandy Davidson, he lives the legacy of the father who abandoned him, performing on his beloved horses in the circus ring. But he’s also his Romanian mother’s son. As Vandy Petruska, he seeks to deny the tarot magie his mother has gifted to him. But as the magie’s power over him grows stronger, he becomes aware that the bad luck in his life isn’t an accident. When his Romanian ancestors immigrated to America on the back of a trick horse, they brought something with them. Something evil. Now this evil is attacking him, and Vandy will have to learn to accept his mother’s magie if he is ever going to defeat the entity that has marked him for death.
Set against the harsh and unforgiving landscape of the 1930s American Southwest, Vandemere is a lyrical coming-of-age story that infuses magical realism into a young man’s journey towards manhood.
Vandemere is part one of a duology and the first book in the series. For the best experience, the author suggests reading Vandemere first. Fire Horse is the second book of the duology. It is possible to read the books out of sequence but not recommended.
This book is a gritty depiction of life in the 1930s American Southwest. It contains violence, coarse language, self-harm, and sexual situations. Some of its darker themes may be triggering to sensitive readers. Please use discretion when deciding if this book is right for you.
Trick rider in a traveling circus, seventeen-year-old Vandemere (Vandy) Petruska is caught between two worlds. As Vandy Davidson, he lives the legacy of the father who abandoned him, performing on his beloved horses in the circus ring. But he’s also his Romanian mother’s son. As Vandy Petruska, he seeks to deny the tarot magie his mother has gifted to him. But as the magie’s power over him grows stronger, he becomes aware that the bad luck in his life isn’t an accident. When his Romanian ancestors immigrated to America on the back of a trick horse, they brought something with them. Something evil. Now this evil is attacking him, and Vandy will have to learn to accept his mother’s magie if he is ever going to defeat the entity that has marked him for death.
Set against the harsh and unforgiving landscape of the 1930s American Southwest, Vandemere is a lyrical coming-of-age story that infuses magical realism into a young man’s journey towards manhood.
Vandemere is part one of a duology and the first book in the series. For the best experience, the author suggests reading Vandemere first. Fire Horse is the second book of the duology. It is possible to read the books out of sequence but not recommended.
This book is a gritty depiction of life in the 1930s American Southwest. It contains violence, coarse language, self-harm, and sexual situations. Some of its darker themes may be triggering to sensitive readers. Please use discretion when deciding if this book is right for you.
I received an audiobook version of this book through Netgalley. This is my honest review.
The cover of this book had me expecting Night Circus vibes from this story and it did not deliver on that expectation for me. Instead I got Ladies of the Secret Circus vibes, which is actually more fitting in retrospect. The presence that Vandy hears certainly seems demonic, but he's also blessed/cursed with some cool magical abilities.
Vandy is viewed as a troublemaker by the cops in the small Oklahoma town where the story largely takes place. This is due in part because he's trying to swindle money out of unsuspecting patrons of the zoo at the start of the story, one of those patrons just happens to be a cop with some interesting abilities of his own.
There were a lot of parts of this story that really pissed me off as the mother of teenagers. Vandy is still a child, but in the 1930s when this is set, he was not treated or protected like one. And his mother was a not insignificant part of the problem. Maybe she had demons of her own she was battling, but she failed as a parent.
The narration for this book was okay. The opposite gendered voices bugged me a little at times, but they weren't horrible.
Overall I give Vandemere 4.1036 out of 5 stars. - Katie
Kimberley D. Tait was born and raised in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Horses have always played a huge role in her life. Much of her childhood was spent daydreaming about riding, and writing stories about horses. Eventually, Kimberley was able to combine these two passions into a productive career training dressage horses for the showring, and bringing her love of horses into her writing. When she isn't working in her garden, or walking the trails around her home near Orangeville, Ontario, Canada, she can be found sitting by a stream with her nose in a book, and communing with the spirits.
Circ de Tarot Series marks Kimberley's debut into the world of self-publishing.
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