An entertaining blend of SF, fantasy, and history.
Time travelers fight to stop a diabolical man intent on destroying the multiverse in this third installment of Parris’ historical fantasy series.
Kreindia of Amorium, from the ninth century, and Wade Linwood, from the 21st, are synesthetes in love. (Viewing certain shapes causes Kreindia to taste particular flavors.) Their “crossed senses” also give them the ability to travel through time via the astral plane. Since the duo’s confrontation with nefarious synesthete Faron Richter in the previous novel, Kreindia of Amorium (2017),the multiverse has become “unstable” and the timeline has been altered. To fix this, Wade travels on his own to Western Europe in the year 499 to prevent a key battle. However, for the most part, he and Kreindia spend their time checking other historical events to ensure that “all is as it should be” within the multiverse. This isn’t easy when Faron is determined to create chaos by upending a ninth-century peace treaty between Byzantine and Roman emperors. He also has a plan to “wipe out” all other synesthetes in the world, as he considers them lesser than himself. In the course of her time travels, Kreindia is “re-made” into a new person named Amynta, but she strives to keep everything else in history the same until she can vanquish Faron and reunite with Wade. This lengthy tale is full of disparate characters, time periods, and incidences of astral-plane travel. Despite this complexity, Parris makes it all a breeze to follow, as the story tends to stay in one time period during Kreindia’s or Wade’s missions. The characters are a vibrant mix of fictional characters and figures drawn from real life, such as Khans Krum and Omurtag. At the same time, fine details are keen and perceptible: “Suddenly the only sounds were those of spreading cracks giving way to a dissonant clash and a rapid series of thuds as broken metal pieces salted the ground.” There’s a definite feeling of finality at the end, although more sequels could comfortably fit into this expansive world.
An entertaining blend of SF, fantasy, and history.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-942183-06-8
Page Count: 623
Publisher: Blueberry Lane Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Read it for an inventive feminist entry to Jewish mystical fiction, but don’t expect any miracles.
A young woman and her family reckon with the aftermath—physical, emotional, and magical—of a violent pogrom.
In the Russian Pale of Settlement, in the year 1905, Cossacks march through Yetta’s shtetl, murdering and pillaging, with shouts of “Jews will not replace us.” At first, Yetta hides with her mother, Frieda, and her baby brother, Ephraim, but when she fears for her father Mordechai’s life, she throws herself into the melee with devastating consequences. Desperate to save his daughter, Mordechai enacts a kabbalistic ritual without entirely understanding its repercussions. The story becomes a golem/dybbuk two-for-one, utilizing these stalwarts of Jewish folklore to explore a young woman’s battle for agency and self-love in the aftermath of sexual violence. While the ideas here are promising, the delivery leaves something to be desired: In her eagerness to ensure readers are picking up what she’s putting down, Sher beats the proverbial horse to death, and then beats its dybbuk, too. Yetta’s voice—whether it issues from a living girl, a dybbuk, or a golem—always sounds the same, diluting the novel’s atmospheric project. The prose is able enough but never bewitches as it means to, as attempts to stay in a folkloric, period-accurate register result in anemic, stilted sentences. The language is lightly peppered with italicized, transliterated Yiddish and Hebrew, with Yetta somewhat anachronistically referring to her parents by the Hebrew “Ima” and “Abba” rather than the Yiddish “Mame” and “Tate.” The third-person point of view cycles among Frieda, Mordechai, and the various Yettas, and their conflicting perspectives support the story’s tension. The plot picks up speed early on and dutifully keeps chugging. Nevertheless, the pages turn slowly.
Read it for an inventive feminist entry to Jewish mystical fiction, but don’t expect any miracles.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9780316595858
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
A dark fantasy debut featuring a strong and compelling heroine.
The daughter of a rice farmer prevails at the treacherous imperial court of the Azalea Dynasty, where princes and their wives, concubines, and courtiers scheme for power.
When the ailing emperor of Tensha names Terren, his second son, as his heir, a search begins for young women to serve as concubines. Despite reports of Terren’s sadism, Yin Wei, the 16-year-old daughter of a rice farmer, presents herself as a candidate, hoping to secure gifts for her famine-ravaged village and a chance for her younger brother to go to school. When the court’s representative dismisses her as a joke, she responds, “Then let the prince laugh.” Her plea works—and reveals the quick wit and strength of character that ensures her survival in a court where no one can be trusted. After Terren selects Wei to be his Empress-in-Waiting, he regularly subjects her to violence, including that of his magic blades. Fearing for the future of Tensha under his erratic tyranny, Wei determines to compose a heart-spirit poem, which, if used at the right moment, could kill him. Doing so requires Wei not only to learn literomancy—writing poems with the power of spells—in a world where literacy for women is criminal, but also to become deeply familiar with Terren, and thus able to find the words to strike directly at his heart. The story of his past is grotesque, and reveals the way that wrangling for dynastic power destroys families and brings ruin upon a nation; but Terren’s dark history is less compelling than Wei’s steadfast pursuit of it. Resilient and clever, Wei is the heart of the novel, striving to navigate a world of lies and cruelty without becoming cruel herself. She learns to wield power with fidelity to her purpose, and though the novel’s title alludes to her triumph, the story is full of page-turning suspense.
A dark fantasy debut featuring a strong and compelling heroine.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9781250406811
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Bramble Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
