Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold, Book 2 of 3

Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold #2

by Alisa Kwitney, Kent Williams (llustrator), Michael Zulli (Illustrator)

Welcomed warily into a community of holdouts from a modern-day plague, the mysterious John Ryder continues to tell his tale based on a prophetic page torn from the Book of Destiny. His second story, beautifully illustrated by Scott Hampton, captures a moment in time just before the Black Death overtook Europe in the 1300s, as seen through the eyes of a young princess for whom marriage is literally a matter of life and death.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

47 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

I'm the author of YA, graphic novels and novels for adults who still feel young, at least most of the time. Recent works include GILT, a graphic novel about time-traveling women of a certain age; Cadaver & Queen, a YA Feminist Frankenstein meets Grey's Anatomy tale, and Mystik U from DC Comics, which features Zatanna and other magical characters in their first year at college. I also co-host a Sandman podcast, The Endless, with Lani Diane Rich.

My first novel, Till the Fat Lady Sings, is also about college and romance and eating disorders. (It was my thesis at Columbia University's MFA Program, where I felt like an outlier for liking comic books and romance as much as literature.) I was an editor at Vertigo, the mature/dark fantasy branch of DC Comics, before going freelance. (I've also written two hormonal werewolf books as Alisa Sheckley.)

I live near the Vanderbilt Estate in Hyde Park, NY, with two dogs and a frightening number of books.

aka Alisa Sheckley

Reviews

[Storm · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It shames me sometimes, this urge to survive. It seems shallow and animal, to want to go on when everyone I ever cared for is dead. And then a stranger came and talked to me and made me remember what it was like, to discover the echoes of yourself in someone else's story."

We continue learning about Ruth, the farmer's wife and owner of Paladin, a horse that has mysteriously survived the plague. Ryder, the stranger, goes back to town to read the next chapter of Destiny's book, this time we are transported to Medieval England, where King Edward is trying to recreate the magic of Camelot by starting his own band of knights, and trying to fend off war by marrying his youngest daughter to a future ally, who happens to be unstable and might kill her. The young daughter is befriended by a man who is willing to die for her, while around them, the Black Plague begins to stalk all the living. Once again, the writing is superlative. The art, is still only at a 3* level, at best, but I was completely engrossed in the story and cannot wait for the conclusion.

[Rachel Redhead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another intriguing chapter of the story, set in ye olde times with nasty knights and rustic bumpkins and the pied piper of the plague...