An often charming, if predictable, story featuring a main character who tackles some intriguing challenges.
In Day’s fantasy series-starter, a young woman fights the forces of evil while battling with her own depression.
Twenty-year-old Solitude “Soli” Graymind doesn’t seem special, but the careful wording of a prophecy makes her exactly who the troubled kingdom needs. She leaves a life of indentured servitude to bear the burden of a magical amulet that belongs to the goddess Artemisen, who’s trapped in a crystal tomb and communicates with Soli as the young woman goes on a journey to rescue her. Along the way, Soli battles depression as well as the machinations of evil goddess Corvynne’s henchmen. The author sets up a world where princes are orphaned, magic is alternately reviled and revered, goddesses clash, and a mere mortal struggling with mental illness must save the day. The book is, at its best, a straightforward quest adventure; the depiction of Soli’s internal battles is a bit heavy-handed, but her fight against her illness—and against the stigma that her society places upon it—will appeal to readers who have similar struggles or know others who do. The tale also features romantic elements, and they aren’t presented as a slow burn; indeed, Soli and a prince fall in love and begin a physical relationship quite quickly. Refreshingly, the prince comes with his own emotional baggage and reservations, and lovers of romantasy will enjoy the pairing. Classic fantasy fans will connect with the worldbuilding, which features exciting magical creatures, intriguing locations, and determined evildoers. The narrative only gets halfway through Soli’s quest to free the goddess in this installment, and the pitfalls that she and other heroes face come across as a touch simplistic at times, with few surprises, and villains tend to announce themselves. Hopefully, more exciting twists await readers in an upcoming sequel.
An often charming, if predictable, story featuring a main character who tackles some intriguing challenges.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9781682816707
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.
The conclusion to the Villains trilogy asks, In a world where there are no heroes, what does victory really mean?
Schwab’s world is one where violent near-death experiences can engender ExtraOrdinaries, people who come back to life with a new superpowered ability, but lacking empathy, patience, and a variety of other, gentler qualities. In this installment, Victor Vale is becoming increasingly desperate; ever since Sydney Clarke used her power to bring him back from the dead, control over his own ability to cause and dampen pain has been slipping. Sydney herself is chafing against her life on the run with Victor’s protective ex-cellmate, Mitch Turner, and struggling with missing both Victor and her dead sister, Serena, whom she might not be able to resurrect—and definitely shouldn’t. Meanwhile, a psychiatrist, Dr. Gabriel Gray, discovers the existence of ExtraOrdinary people and seeks to harness their power for himself with tragic consequences for himself and many other people. Because the narrative skips around in time, it becomes clear fairly early that a final conflict is looming at EON, a high-tech facility where ExtraOrdinaries are imprisoned and experimented upon. This series has really lived up to its title; while antiheroes and villains have been popular protagonists for quite some time, not every writer is willing to lean into the darkness as hard as Schwab does. Some of her characters were psychopaths even before their near-death traumas, which means they didn’t have much moral fiber to begin with. And even the people who are basically good do a lot of bad and often foolish things when faced with a crisis…and there are a lot of crises. The strength of this series lies in Schwab’s ExtraOrdinary power to make you care for many of these incredibly rash, ethically dubious—some verging on irredeemable—characters anyway. As a result, the story rises above the usual grimdark cynical slog; instead, this is a gripping and nuanced saga with an ending that feels both inevitable and well earned.
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781250192233
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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