A hilarious, fun, and exciting fantasy adventure.
Just when a man thinks he’s hit rock bottom and life can’t get any worse, a demon steals his soul in this debut novel.
Matthew Carver has a very sad life. His mother and two sisters die in a car accident on their way to visit him in college. He then drops out of school and becomes estranged from his father. He moves in with his best friend, Connor, and his fiancee, Violet, whom Matt is secretly in love with. Matt is drinking sadly on his birthday when Dan the Demon arrives with a proposition. If Matt sells his soul, he gets the girl. But Matt loves his friends, and he would never want to see Connor and Violet break up, or worse, so he declines. Dan won’t take no for an answer and forges Matt’s signature, committing the titular “soul fraud” and leaving the protagonist with a giant mess. Matt worries about the fate of his soul, his friends, and whatever else the demon has done to threaten his life and those he cares about, prompting him to search for answers. He makes friends with Alex, a supernatural being and an investigative journalist (“Let me come along with you, document what happens. You know, the whole reporter thing”). Alex has the connections and resources to help Matt. One of these contacts is the mythic hunter Orion. With Orion and Alex’s guidance, Matt delves deeper into the world of magic, demons, angels, fairies, and, most important, fraudulent paperwork. Givler’s series opener is wonderfully entertaining. The author is a master at interweaving worldbuilding, characterizations, and humor. Matt is relatable, and his decisions drive the plot, resulting in a bracing fantasy adventure and coming-of-age story. Other players, such as Orion and Alex, feel fully developed and complex as well, adding depth to the tale. The supernatural and fantastical aspects are creatively rendered. Givler presents his own version of these myths and fairy tales in an intriguing way that helps sustain the narrative. The author’s well-crafted action scenes also help support the plot and keep the story moving. Fantasy and supernatural fans will delight in this addition to their bookshelves.
A hilarious, fun, and exciting fantasy adventure.Pub Date: June 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-958204-02-3
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Sad Seagull Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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