Imaginative storytelling that delivers memorable characters, human and otherwise.
A princess finds hidden strength and purpose in a kingdom filled with intrigue and treachery.
In this debut YA fantasy, Seeling delivers creative tweaks to familiar tropes of the genre, building a compelling world of magic, warfare, powerful evildoers, indelible dragons, loyal horses, and a princess and others tested by adversity. While the last section of this three-part epic occasionally loses momentum due primarily to overt proselytizing (Christian-based but not named as such), the author successfully navigates multiple interwoven plotlines. Love (romantic, platonic, and parental) is a recurring theme. So are betrayal, transformation, and self-discovery. Although Seeling’s villains are one-note (an evil queen, a sadistic emperor, a pair of tyrants), her heroes have strong emotional dimensions. Among them, timid book lover Princess Isladora must overcome fear, physical weakness, and a traitorous queen to save her father’s kingdom. Meluha Crocus, an ancient spirit held captive in Isladora’s magic ring, offers wisdom and guidance. Tobin, the commoner who comes into Isladora’s life, finds his nobility in words and deeds. Half dragon, half human Ariah and her wyvern (dragon) companion, Json, must escape their enslavement to fulfill a destiny they never imagined. Commander, the deposed leader of the wyverns, finds a new life underground and a nurturing imperative to aid tiny “Annites” as they face the threat of extinction from “Protectors.” (The despotic ruler of these potent Protectors, refusing to acknowledge the Annites’ existence as sentient beings, plunders their subterranean habitat for magic “frost.”) Unfortunately, Isladora begins sermonizing in earnest in Part 3 (“Meluha Crocus was the antithesis of religious, and she knew he was in pain because he wanted to believe. She prayed that God would show him the way”). Still, one of the surprises Seeling has in store for readers reveals how Meluha came to be entrapped in a ring. Other twists: the truth of Isladora’s parentage, how the wyverns bond with their half human companions, how the Annites thank Commander, and weapons and fight training. The most cinematic element in this far-reaching plot is the strange trajectory of Json and Ariah’s relationship.
Imaginative storytelling that delivers memorable characters, human and otherwise.Pub Date: April 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64702-190-0
Page Count: 572
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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