A convoluted but entertaining sword-and-sorcery romance.
An ancient god’s resurrection causes turmoil in Asgard and on Earth in this fantasy.
Following up on The Ebony Queen (2020), this third installment of Lane’s series charts another imbroglio started by the witch Cynara, queen of Velez. She has unwittingly released the bloody essence of the Asgardian god Anastacio from an eons-old crystal orb while imprisoning the consciousness of Odin, king of the gods, in the same globe. Unfortunately for Cynara, stealing Odin’s divine knowledge leaves her a kind of prisoner, too, as she is left conscious but paralyzed at Camden castle. That leaves an opening for Lady Regana, the queen whom Cynara ousted, to try to kill her—unsuccessfully, since Cynara can’t swallow the poison her foe sticks in her mouth. With Cynara laid up, a succession crisis brings to the fore Keldan Ashburn, Regana’s secret son, who shows the privy council that “a royal emblem is branded between” his “ass cheeks” that establishes his right to the throne. But then Anastacio’s blood infuses the body of Velez’s former King Rickard, Keldan’s father and Cynara’s husband (and Regana’s ex), who is believed dead but is actually yet another conscious paralytic, mummified alive by Cynara in a statue. Anastacio takes over Rickard’s decaying body, rules competently over an astonished Velez, and spends much time bickering with a revived Cynara over all the cruel mischief she has wrought. But with Cynara converted by Odin’s knowledge from hellacious bitch to benign humanitarian, the true villain emerges: Daemonis, a fallen archangel whose duel with Anastacio over the goddess Freya started the orb business. A coalition of Valhallans, witches, and toxic geckos rallies to take him on. Lane’s labyrinthine yarn feels overstuffed with subplots; the characters are well drawn and energetic, but the novel lacks the space to do them all justice. Her writing features atmospheric prose, crude humor, and effective, ghoulish set pieces, including the disembowelment of a sniveling priest by a giant goshawk. There’s a delicious Game of Thrones vibe in scenes of royal intrigue. (“There’s doubt on both sides; no proof for Keldan, no proof for Rudrik. However, one man is moldable and the other is not.”) Lane’s imaginative worldbuilding, tart dialogue, and dramatic reanimations and showdowns are enough to keep readers forging ahead through the tangle of narrative strands.
A convoluted but entertaining sword-and-sorcery romance.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-1777069964
Page Count: 462
Publisher: Shelley Kassian
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
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
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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