A goosebump-inducing dark fantasy set at a supernatural institute of higher learning.
Cottrell pays homage to the work of H. P. Lovecraft in this first paranormal New Adult novel in a planned series.
Miskatonic University has known its share of darkness. Set on a hill above the spooky New England town of Arkham, the school’s buildings once housed an asylum for the mentally ill with a torturous reputation. Now it trains its students—many of whom have extrasensory gifts—in the investigation of the paranormal. College junior Ellen Logan came to Miskatonic to hone her psychic abilities. In her spare time, she works at the local New Age bookshop, helping customers with their supernatural problems. When Ellen’s friend Stephanie Lansdale dies in a fall from the university’s clock tower—seemingly by suicide—Ellen finds she now has some supernatural problems of her own. Stephanie’s boyfriend, Joey Richards, disappears soon afterward, leaving Ellen a strange leatherbound book and a million questions. It seems Stephanie and Joey were researching a tragedy that happened in a local mine back in the 1940s. Now, with the help of Miskatonic’s legendary professor of the weird, Andrew Carter, Ellen takes up the investigation, which leads her to discover an evil beyond her comprehension. Cottrell marries some of the baroque style of Lovecraft’s fiction with a contemporary New Adult tone; here, for instance, Ellen’s professor unbinds her after performing a magic ritual: “Ellen propped herself on her elbows, watching him untie her. A warm flush coursed through her, surging between her legs. Crush. The word, like the sensation, struck like a bolt out of the blue. Oh God, do I have crush on Andrew Carter?” The fictional universe in these pages has a metafictional relationship with Lovecraft’s mythos; Lovecraft’s horror stories and the Batman videogame Arkham Asylum also exist in it, for example, and some purists may grumble at this narrative choice. Fans of spooky tales of academia, though, are sure to enjoy this creepy offering and look forward to sequels.
A goosebump-inducing dark fantasy set at a supernatural institute of higher learning.Pub Date: March 13, 2023
ISBN: 9798986593807
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Vanishing Edge Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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