An uneven debut fantasy, but its intriguing setting and well-developed characters show promise.
In Hewitt’s debut YA fantasy novel, a young woman—part human, part elf—joins a group of mages and warriors in the hope of learning how to use her own magic.
The novel gets into the action on its very first page, when a killer swings a sword at protagonist Sylvia, causing her father, the king of Larenta, to sacrifice himself to rescue her. Sometime after her father’s death, she resurfaces at a country inn with a lot of baggage. She encounters a mage named Gavren traveling with his apprentice, Kyra, and Derik, their warrior companion. They ask Sylvia to join them on their journey, hoping they can find someone to heal the traces of “shadow” left behind from the altercation that killed her father. Sylvia’s reluctant to join them, for good reason: She’s half-elf, with a strain of fairy-elf magic in her blood. The magic is powerful and uncontrollable, and she feels she must keep it from any magic users who might seek to manipulate her. The mage’s party manages to convince her to come along, but Gavren soon proves himself untrustworthy when he takes Sylvia’s box, a magical item left to her by her late mother. During their journey, however, Sylvia forms a grudging, mutual understanding with Gavren and Kyra, and quickly falls in love with Derik, who shares her romantic feelings. As a group, they encounter orcs, soldiers and dragons, some helpful and some harmful, and learn more about Sylvia’s importance in a changing world. Much of the book centers on Sylvia’s growing relationship with Derik and her struggles with intimacy; after her father was killed, Sylvia was at the mercy of a group of soldiers, a fact that haunts her throughout the book. The mage Gavren shows the greatest depth; he manages to be a good guy while also resorting to trickery to learn Sylvia’s secrets. The prose is often awkward, however, relying on repetition and declarations of emotion (“[H]e was so taken by the beautiful woman he was made oblivious to what was happening”), and it may sometimes be hard for readers to follow how one event leads to the next. That said, there’s much to be admired in this book; the fantasy setting leaves a lot to be explored in future installments, and Sylvia’s role within it promises great drama.
An uneven debut fantasy, but its intriguing setting and well-developed characters show promise.Pub Date: June 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-1475990300
Page Count: 294
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
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