An engaging fantasy/romance set in a large, lush, and inclusive world.
An anxious young prince must reconcile his duties to his family and friends with his growing fears of failure.
Second in line to the Araşti throne, Prince Kadou can intuit the contents of metal alloys just by touching them—a skill that leads him to investigate a counterfeiting scheme in the capital city. His investigation leads to a frightening confrontation with his niece’s biological father, a foreign-born noble named Siranos. Kadou takes his concerns about Siranos to his lover, Tadek. Tadek is a kahya—a bodyguard trained in the ways of courtly life—and it is in that capacity that he begins to investigate Siranos. That secondary investigation spirals out of control, leaving three other kahyalar dead, Tadek stripped of his position, and Kadou and Siranos confined to the palace. In the aftermath, the taciturn Evemer, another kahya, arrives to take Tadek’s place. Reeling from the kahyalars’ deaths and Tadek’s dishonorable discharge, Kadou drags Evemer along on a reckless quest to drink and fight his way through the undercity. But when they stumble upon a lead, Kadou and Evemer continue the original investigation, unraveling a conspiracy that leads to the very heart of the Araşti palace. Far more engaging than the court intrigue, however, is the slow burn of Kadou and Evemer’s inevitable romance. In crafting their world, Rowland has drawn inspiration from the Renaissance-era Ottoman Empire, with characters described as having “golden” skin and “glossy black hair,” and much of the Araşti language is derived from Turkish. Other countries appear to be based on Greece and France. The matriarchal defaults and three-gender system present in Araşti society place the novel squarely among the ranks of contemporary queer fantasy. Kadou is gay, Evemer and Tadek are bisexual, and another of the kahyalar, who is third-gender, is openly asexual.
An engaging fantasy/romance set in a large, lush, and inclusive world.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-80038-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Tordotcom
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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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