A fantasy tale with engaging worldbuilding but uneven characterization.
In Burt’s dark fantasy novel, an outcast returns to war in a land ruled by the whims of gods.
As the story opens, narrator Rhekran returns to fight in a long-running conflict after spending the previous nine months recovering from a near-fatal injury. Now she’s back to fulfill her purpose in the land of Jura: to relieve the local tribes of their woes by removing the encroaching Arsoth colonists from their lands. As missions commence, readers come to learn that her fellow soldiers regard her as barbaric, amoral, and inhuman. Rhekran may align herself with the Kireth militia, but she’s also Skaaran, and the well-known adage stands: “Don’t insult a Skaaran.” She’s defied death once, and, according to a local proverb, this has given her a kind of protection: “Refuse Death once, and the gods refuse your death a hundred times over.” Rhekran’s violent instincts come to the fore when Saelihn, the person in Jura about whom she cares the most, is threatened. Rhekran becomes increasingly disillusioned with the war and with her own mission. When the Kireth put her and Saelihn in danger, she promises to deliver retribution. Despite obvious injuries and the concern of her commanders, Rhekran insists on returning to duty. She quickly gains notoriety as a god-killer—and she continues to communicate with the dead; at the same time, the gods are the one thing she truly fears. Battles continue; many die, and Rhekran is honored for her work, but she maintains that she became who she is because it was the only path available to her.
Burt’s storytelling is immediately immersive. The cold Hinterlands setting is compelling, and the war that sweeps through the narrative is well developed. A dialogue-heavy storytelling style keeps the action moving along, and the conflict between cultures and moral systems adds a degree of nuance that is far more compelling than a mere quest to conquer a villain; indeed, Rhekran prepares her crew for battle while also waging one within herself. (Her mantra: “No gods. No history. Burn the path they gave you.”) The ongoing theme of the favor of the gods, and of the danger such favor imposes, matches well with the mythic tone of much of the novel. Such grand stakes, however, sometimes risk clouding the human story at its heart. Rhekran has the makings of a compelling protagonist. She is feared and relied upon in equal measure by those who fight with her, but even she manages to get lost in the folds of the complex story. Over the course of the novel, the reader may find that the large number of characters makes it difficult to root for any single person or side, and the relationship between Rhekran and Saelihn feels too inconsistently developed to be a strong motivating force for the protagonist. A smaller cast and tighter character development might have made it easier for readers to follow Rhekran's developing disillusionment and better understand the magic that guides her world.
A fantasy tale with engaging worldbuilding but uneven characterization.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2025
ISBN: 9798297717190
Page Count: 476
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2025
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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