An imaginative, genre-blurring novel.
Gillespie’s supernatural tale mixes motivational ideas with fantasy elements.
In an office above Boston Harbor, lawyer Ember Brooke often works into the night, following the lead of her parents, James and Cynthia, also hard-driven attorneys. Attempting something different, Ember begins yoga instructor training, but has an unsettling experience during meditation: The vision starts peacefully, but turns dark as her inner light approaches a giant prism on a mountain peak. Setting aside this episode, Ember returns to the work grind, and her parents die in a car accident. James and Cynthia’s business partner, NP Dunn, organizes their “Celebration of Life” ceremony, but Ember senses negative vibes from Dunn. Returning to her parents’ house, Ember is transported via her mom’s yoga mat to Resonance, the mysterious place she saw during her class: “a realm of pure light and creation.” There, she meets Breathers, residents who travel between Resonance and the real world, and confirms her instincts about Dunn—he controls the Prism, making it absorb, not emit, light. Those who’ve tried to challenge Dunn have failed, resulting in a population of mindless Wanderers. A discovery fuels Ember’s determination to reclaim power; with Breathers Jade (a former neurosurgeon) and Derek (a tech product developer), Ember journeys up the mountain and into battle. Gillespie’s flowing narrative propels readers forward, buoyed by numerous engaging dialogues and simple yet smoothly constructed sentences. While readers don’t get much sense of Boston, the world of Resonance is richly imagined and described. There’s a palace made “of shimmering gold cascading from the mountain itself,” venomous shadows burst out of hovering orbs, and there’s mist “curling around the group like unseen hands.” The characters are likable (including Frank, Derek’s dog), but sometimes seem underdeveloped; for example, Ember is horrified by the prospect of infertility as a “Soul Toll,” but seems otherwise unconcerned about her childlessness, and Jade, the former neurosurgeon, is always trying to take everyone’s pulse. Ultimately, Gillespie makes a convincing case that the “woo-woo” ideas Ember initially rejects are worth pursuing.
An imaginative, genre-blurring novel.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A smart and highly original work of modern fantasy.
After the events of Book of Night (2022), Charlie Hall is forced to hunt down the perpetrator of a terrible massacre.
Charlie Hall is the Hierophant: It’s her job to be tethered to a powerful, independent shadow—a “Blight”— and hunt down other Blights for the Cabals, the heads of their respective shadow-magic specialties. The Cabals use the difficult job of Hierophant as a punishment, but Charlie agreed to take it on so she could be the person tethered to Vince, aka Red, the Blight who posed as a human and ended up dating and falling in love with Charlie. The Cabal leaders used magic to steal the part of Red’s memory that contained his relationship with Charlie, and so Charlie is determined to steal Red’s memories back. And she needs to move fast, because if Red doesn’t remember loving her, he just might be OK with Charlie being killed if it means his own freedom. Meanwhile, Mr. Punch, a terrifying Cabal leader who specializes in using shadow magic to possess other people’s bodies, has a job for Charlie: He wants her to find the culprit behind a terrible massacre that was attributed to a cult. He suspects that the people were actually killed by a Blight, and he doesn’t want the Cabals to face the blowback if the truth becomes public. Mr. Punch could do terrible things to Charlie if she fails, but if she succeeds, he’ll help Charlie and Red be free of the Cabals for good. The sophomore novel in a series is always tough, but this sequel proves that the second book can be even better than the first. Black turns the screws on the magical world she set up in Book 1, creating complicated political motives between Charlie and the Cabal leaders and making the question of what it means for a shadow, like Red, to have their own consciousness more interesting. Veteran con artist Charlie makes some truly brilliant moves, especially toward the end, where the last few chapters have one terrific surprise after the other.
A smart and highly original work of modern fantasy.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781250812223
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 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
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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