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
Great character work and interesting plot development make this an exceptional middle volume.
The second in a political fantasy trilogy concerning Kithamar, a powerful city-state in turmoil.
The first book, Age of Ash (2022), covered the monthslong reign of Prince Byrn a Sal of Kithamar, who inadvertently interrupted the centuries-old secret rule of a ruthless body-switching entity by not actually being part of the royal line and therefore incapable of hosting it. This installment takes place in that same year and begins with the exact same prologue but instead follows a separate group of characters who only appeared tangentially in the first book. It’s love at first sight for Elaine a Sal, daughter and heir to Byrn, and merchant’s son Garreth Left; their initial encounter is just the beginning of a profound shake-up in both their lives. As Elaine adjusts to palace life and begins to suspect sinister, impossible things about the dead Prince Ausai, Garreth defies his parents’ wishes to seal an important business transaction with a foreign marriage and runs away to join the city guard. Meanwhile, Captain Senit of the city guard makes it his mission to go after Aunt Thorn, a powerful crime kingpin apparently named after a trickster god, unaware that Aunt Thorn actually is the trickster god in question, among other things. Many authors have chosen to tell a story from two different perspectives in separate books, but Abraham’s effort is unusual in that it uses two different casts of characters, which allows for a more extensive tapestry of plot. It also serves to illuminate how profoundly people can be interconnected and never even understand how they are linked or even that they’re linked in the first place. The motivations and actions of a stranger can have a profound effect on someone’s life without the other person ever knowing about it. This parallel book both fills in the noticeable gaps in the previous volume and continues to highlight a favorite Abraham theme: the complex outcomes stemming from personal choice. Garreth’s decision to abandon the circumscribed position his family has established for him and his subsequent inability to fully devote himself to the city guard because of his newfound love for Elaine are understandable parts of his journey to find his own path and be true to himself; but they have significant, sometimes damaging consequences for those around him.
Great character work and interesting plot development make this an exceptional middle volume.Pub Date: July 18, 2023
ISBN: 9780316421898
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
A dark and devastating conclusion that transcends its roots in historical fact to examine brutal truths.
In the final installment of the Poppy War trilogy, a warrior shaman resolves to seize control of her homeland from enemies far and near, no matter the cost.
Having suffered severe losses and betrayals, Rin rallies the Southern Coalition in an effort to defeat the Mugenese troops still in Nikan, the president of the Nikara Republic, and the foreign menace of the Hesperians, with their almost unimaginably advanced technology. But a southern army is not enough, and Rin must also rely on the unpredictable powers of her wild god, the Phoenix, and form a risky alliance with the Trifecta that once ruled Nikan. Drawing heavily on 20th-century Chinese history, Kuang continues to explore familiar themes—including imperialism, racism, colorism, and the terrible and long-lasting effects of war—while deepening Rin’s portrayal, as Rin experiences moments of heartfelt sympathy and connection with others while also continually seeking power and succumbing over and over to her own hubris and paranoia. This installment dwells heavily on the devastating realities of war and the costs of leading a nation in crisis but does not sink into overly grotesque meditations—or perhaps we, along with Rin, have become desensitized and hardened. Ultimately, despite the epic scope of the plot, the novel hinges on the relationships between Rin and those closest to her: A nation may rise or fall and thousands may lose their homes or starve in the process, but their fate depends not on magic from the divine plane but on simple, fallible people.
A dark and devastating conclusion that transcends its roots in historical fact to examine brutal truths. (Map, Dramatis Personae)Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-266262-0
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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