An entertaining romance for sword-and-sorcery fans.
A shape-shifting lord and a princess with snakelike powers battle a witch’s curse—and a potentially fatal attraction—in this debut fairy-tale romance.
Princess Scarlett of Velez and her sisters, Ruby and Rose, feel dispossessed because their younger half brother, Prince Lowell, will inherit the crown and gets all the attention of their father, King Rickard. The bigger problem, though, is their stepmother, Queen Cynara, a wicked sorceress who frames Scarlett for Rickard’s murder-by-cobra-bite. Sentenced to die poetically by another cobra bite, Scarlett survives and gets vaguely serpentine powers from the venom now flowing through her veins; Cynara then banishes her to Drum Manor, home of Lord Nicolai Graydon. Scarlett finds a gloomy, cobwebbed estate presided over by the preternaturally handsome and menacing Nicolai, who has his own history with Cynara: Sixteen years earlier Nicolai dumped her to marry an heiress, and she retaliated by annihilating the heiress with energy bolts and imposing a curse that causes Nicolai to turn into a black panther and tear out the throat of any woman who arouses him. Scarlett and Nicolai circle warily, each posing a sexily lethal threat to the other. Nicolai is indeed aroused by Scarlett, especially when he spies on her while she is undressing in her bedchamber; yet if he succumbs to his panther side and goes for her throat, her venomous blood will poison him. But Nicolai’s butler says that Scarlett may be able to lift Nicolai’s curse if she can cage him and teach him the meaning of true love. Lane’s yarn, the first in her Reign of Blood and Magic series, sometimes bogs down in ruminative longueurs as characters brood on their predicaments, but it features rousing magical action set pieces and sorcery that’s engrossing and creepy. (Rickard, it turns out, isn’t dead but doomed to eternal consciousness in a paralyzed body, which Cynara props up as a statue while he experiences helpless pain and humiliation from the insults visited on his inert frame.) Lane’s prose is sometimes rough—“Bon appetite”—but intense and evocative: “Round and round [Scarlett] went on the stone stairs, each step downward taking her closer to her final punishment….all too quickly she would fall silent, buried by wet mud in her grave.” The result is an imaginative fantasy that reprises the themes of "Beauty and the Beast" with feisty characters and richly intriguing witchery.
An entertaining romance for sword-and-sorcery fans.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
Warm and wonderful.
A prequel to the popular cozy fantasy Legends & Lattes (2022).
Viv is a fighter. It’s not just what she does, it’s who she is. So when she gets wounded during a battle with a necromancer’s skeletal wights, and her crew dumps her in a small seaside town to recover while they continue on after the necromancer, she is not happy about it. But soon enough, against her will, she’s drawn into the life of the town. There’s Fern, the unsuccessful bookseller, who has a knack for recommending exactly the right book. And there’s Maylee, the baker, who not only makes the world’s best baked goods, she actually winks at Viv. Before Viv knows what’s happening, she’s helping Fern out here and there, she’s reading—she’s involved. Meanwhile, there’s a pesky young gnome asking for an introduction to her mercenary crew, and a mysterious man in gray who looks like trouble. But Viv is leaving when her crew comes back through town. No matter what. This prequel gives readers a glimpse of Viv as a young orc, still committed to the fighter’s life, just taking an enforced break in a charming town populated by compelling, richly drawn characters, and the slightest hint of danger in the wind. Despite the lurking necromancer, the vibes are decidedly warm and cozy, and the plot is just as much about saving the bookstore and building relationships as it is about protecting the town from the man in gray. As a prequel, it can stand alone, but will certainly satisfy fans as well.
Warm and wonderful.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781250886101
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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