James McCann (1)

Born in the year 998, Rancour, son of Faolchú, belonged to a clan of shapeshifters that humans came to know as werewolves, but was raised by the bloodthirsty Alsandair, a nomadic tribe that slaughtered his people. Eventually rebelling against the pointless violence of his adoptive kin, Rancour left the Alsandair to find his own path in life... But he soon found himself a target of a rogue vampire named Shay, himself a rebel against the meaningless hedonism of his kind. Deciding to give meaning to his life by systematically destroying another being, Shay sets out to ruin his victim’s life, and sets in motion the thousand-year feud between the two immortals. Flashbacks to this earlier period are mingled with contemporary scenes, in which Rancour (now Rellick) and Shay both descend on the small town of Minitaw, Rancour to find his reincarnated love, high-school student Alix, and Shay to thwart him once again...

This young adult thriller never strays far from the formulaic plot common to many such books, and although the unhappy ending comes as a surprise, the wooden narration robs it of any emotional impact and gives it a sense of anti-climax. The teen conflicts never seem quite real, nor is the over-arching plot-line particularly involving. The initial excitement of finding a fantasy novel written by a children’s bookseller soon gave way to irritation in this reviewer, not only at the wooden characterization and plotting, but at the author’s poor writing style. This last manifests itself more than twice a page, with odd word choices and sentence structure: "Why they’d placed it behind the cash register never seemed absurd until now;" and incongruous descriptions: can thoughts settle "upon the constellations like dew upon grass"?… (mere)

Reviewed by Sally Kruger aka "Readingjunky" for TeensReadToo.com

When he is not busy doing homework and getting straight A's, working with his ESL tutor, and acting as translator for his mother who doesn't speak English, Jinho is practicing tae kwon do. He enjoys the physical activity and the discipline required by the sport.

Following his performance in a competitive event, Jinho is approached by a man who calls himself Austin. Austin hints that he would be interested in having Jinho train and fight for him. He leaves his business card and says he hopes to hear from Jinho.

Sensing that Austin is inviting him to become part of something illegal, Jinho is still inexplicably drawn to the offer. He calls Austin and suddenly finds himself involved in MMA, but it is martial arts with no holds barred. He survives what he later learns is a type of initiation beating and begins training with Austin. Before he knows it, he is being offered fights that allow him to use moves he has formerly only dreamed of.

Jinho soon realizes that getting involved with Austin has him lying to his mother and his friends. He is also suffering some of the worst physical injuries of his martial arts career. Is this freestyle fighting worth the risk? Is it possible to get out once he has become part of it?

FLYING FEET by James McCann is one of Orca Publishers newest sports collection titles. It is filled with action and reads quickly. There aren't a lot of martial arts stories out there, so this ought to help fill a void in teen fiction.… (mere)