An engaging story that will have readers looking forward to seeing where Syd’s adventures will lead her.
In this first volume of Sevan’s urban fantasy series, a girl must battle an army of supernatural creatures as she learns more about her unusual abilities.
Syd Hoven has psychic powers—and she’d prefer that nobody knew about them. After an incident in which she traumatizes a woman by leading her to her missing daughter’s body, she thinks that it’s better to keep her premonitions to herself. One night, she accepts an invitation to a bar from a co-worker; there, she meets not one, but two incredibly handsome men. It turns out that they’re brothers, and they claim to be there on a mission to protect her. Devon and Jack, who have powers given to them by the Archangel Rafael, have been estranged for almost 200 years, but they can’t refuse an order from the powers that be. Before long, Syd finds out that demons and vampires are after her, too. She does her best to take this all in stride, but it’s not like she has much of a choice with two guardians ordering her around. Soon, she finds herself getting a little too close to Devon despite Jack’s warnings; hopefully, she can survive her feelings for him—as well as attacks from an army of supernatural creatures. Sevan’s series starter is fast-paced and told from multiple perspectives, flowing smoothly from one set piece to another. The action scenes are thrilling and vividly written: “The four gunshots had only opened holes in the bastard-demon’s tunic. A black sludge-like substance leaked out, stinking. The wounds closed within seconds.” The author also does a good job of explaining the details of the paranormal world as Syd encounters them, slowly expanding readers’ knowledge rather than overloading them with information upfront. Syd is a strong, likable protagonist who truly grows into her power as the story progresses.
An engaging story that will have readers looking forward to seeing where Syd’s adventures will lead her.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-79-410234-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
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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