Only you can know if you want to read this book. Follow your instincts.
In the wrap-up to his trilogy, Ramses the Damned is part of a band of immortals with an important mission.
As readers of the preceding installments—The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned (1989) and Ramses the Damned: The Passion of Cleopatra (2017)—will know, the one-time Egyptian pharaoh is now going by Reginald Ramsey and is married to Julie Stratford, the daughter of a dead Egyptologist. The two are among the recipients of a letter from an immortal queen named Bektaten, warning them to resist the urge to get involved in the great war which is about to engulf the planet and inviting them to come hang out at her manor in England if they need a refuge. The group of people who receive the letter has significant overlap with those on a hit list carried by Russian assassins, each of whom has been equipped with an amber gem that brings statues to life, after which they can be controlled like avatars in a video game. When Ramsey and Julie are attacked, he has a vague, millennia-old memory of seeing the stone at one of his pharaonic initiation ceremonies—but feels a little awkward about bringing it up since he was tripping at the time. In any case, after the first three assassination attempts are foiled (that's immortality for you), everybody does indeed head to the manor to plan next steps. In addition to offering what sounds like an orgasmic experience of healing when stabbed or shot, immortality has many other benefits. The immortals have vast appetites for food and sex and can eat constantly with no ill results. Since the authors are mother and son, the seeming paucity of sex scenes is probably for the best. We get a brief three-way including Cleopatra, her young British lover, and an American novelist who receives and experiences Cleopatra's emotions "like a symphony across a telephone line." The other one involves the male lover of the dead Egyptologist, who is not quite himself when restored to life from his coffin but is more fully revived by a hand job.
Only you can know if you want to read this book. Follow your instincts.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-101-97033-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
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
Devoted series fans will appreciate the added pieces to this expansive narrative puzzle.
After 500 years, the Grief of Ages is a distant memory—until dragons hellbent on destruction begin to wake again.
In this relatively brief prequel to the epic The Priory of the Orange Tree (2019), the kingdoms of Virtudom have experienced centuries of relative peace. Marosa Vetalda, the Princess of Yscalin, spends her days behind castle walls under the gaze of her overprotective father, awaiting the date when she’ll be wed to Aubrecht of Mentendon, her ticket to freedom. While the book’s main focus is initially on the political threads weaving the Western kingdoms together, the frailty of best-laid plans is exposed when evidence of the reemergence of draconic beings reaches castle ears. These tales often come from the cullers who make their living slaying these creatures, and who are often blamed for intentionally waking them for profit. No one alive remembers the Grief of Ages, so no one’s prepared when Fýredel, the great High Western dragon, surfaces from the volcanic mountain that towers ominously over Yscalin’s capital city of Cárscaro. What follows is the backstory of how the devoted Yscali kingdom comes to shift allegiance to Fýredel and his master, the Nameless One, a main catalyst to events in The Priory. Overall, this book reads more like history lesson than fantasy adventure, but the sheer terror that befalls the Yscali people as they face Fýredel’s pure evil is both powerful and relevant. Marosa’s plight further solidifies her as a hero worth remembering; her strength and defiance shine through as hope for the future she’s dreamed of slowly flickers out.
Devoted series fans will appreciate the added pieces to this expansive narrative puzzle.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781639736010
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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