Pure entertainment, for better or for worse.
Despite the best efforts of the evil Asteri, Bryce, Hunt, and crew are back to save Midgard in the third installment of Maas’ Crescent City series.
When we last saw Bryce Quinlan, she was escaping an attack from the all-powerful Asteri, the despotic rulers of the planet Midgard. Bryce manages to leap through a portal and finds herself in the Fae’s original home world, where the Fae she meets are recognizable to her, but also somehow more powerful than the Midgardian Fae, who live under the Asteri thumb. These new Fae don’t fully trust the strange woman who appeared in their world out of thin air, and Bryce doesn’t have time to convince them she’s not a threat. When she escapes her holding cell to an underground system of tunnels, she finds the ancient secrets that hold the key to defeating the Asteri once and for all, as well as restoring the people of Midgard to their full power. Armed with both knowledge and weaponry, Bryce opens a portal back to Midgard. But will she make it back in time to save Hunt from the Asteri dungeons? Will her circle of unlikely allies be able to overcome their differences to unite against their evil overlords? Or will the wicked Asteri be two steps ahead and stop their rebellion before it can even start? Book Three somehow finds even bigger extremes than Books One and Two. With a magic system that is loosely defined enough that Maas can make it work in whatever ludicrous ways the plot needs it to, and villains who say things like, “I’m going to teach you a new definition of pain,” this is the kind of writing that gets called a “guilty pleasure.” But it’s certainly not tedious. Though it’s more than 800 pages long, readers may find themselves hauling this heavy book everywhere, unable to put it down.
Pure entertainment, for better or for worse.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781635574104
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2024
An engrossing, action-packed sequel with a compelling cast.
A woman must undergo fearsome trials to free the imprisoned Titans of Greek myth in Owen’s fantasy novel, the second in a series.
Advancing from minor office clerk in the Order of Thieves to Queen of the Underworld, Lyra Keres’ star should be rising. But thanks to Cronos, King of the Titans, she and her longtime friend and fellow thief Boone have been ensnared in a new challenge beneath the earth: Hot on the heels of winning the twisted Crucible Games, Lyra—who has recently been granted goddess powers—finds herself trapped in Tartarus. Separated from her beloved Hades, she must liberate the fearsome Titans from seven Locks to restore the cosmic balance. As Lyra progresses through the Locks engineered by the Gods—each as tricky and lethal as the last—the pressure mounts as the Titans repeatedly remind her, “You will be our savior.” Rhea, the wife of Cronos, reveals that Lyra began this quest “a hundred and fifty years ago,” adding further devastation to the task at hand; the knowledge is helpful, but also painful, as Lyra reflects, “Suddenly, I don’t want to know that it’s real. Because then I have to contemplate how many times I might have ended up in Tartarus already.” As she materializes in and out of time pockets, Lyra sees Hades’ troubled childhood unfold and struggles not to intervene to save the man she loves. In this second entry in the author’s Crucible series, following The Games Gods Play (2024), Lyra’s cynical quips continue to make her an engaging protagonist. Her inner monologues are balanced with hope, love, and longing for Hades as she meets various versions of him. While resilient, Owen’s heroine is also vulnerable (“Was I his pawn in more ways than I ever realized?”). Her introspection effectively contrasts with the simmering rage and restraint in Hades’ chapters. The supporting Titans are given more depth than the traditional myths allow, weaving a knotty family fabric for the reader to navigate alongside Lyra.
An engrossing, action-packed sequel with a compelling cast.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781649378538
Page Count: 500
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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