Rich, brilliant, and often sad, because this contemporary fantasy pulls no punches; blood will regretfully be spilled.
In the second installment of The Convergence Saga (No Gods, No Monsters, 2021), the monsters—werewolves, witches, vampires, and other magical beings—have finally emerged from secrecy.
The Cult of the Zsouvox is fomenting a war between humans and monsters for obscure, apocalyptic reasons. On the human side, the Black Hand escalates violence against monsters. Werewolves Laina Calvary, her husband, Ridley Gibson, and Laina’s girlfriend, Rebecca Vázquez, don’t know where to find support in this rising tide of hatred, since few other monsters are willing to reveal themselves and be exposed to attack. Dragon, a tween who can shift into his namesake, has escaped the Cult of the Zsouvox’s basement cell but is being watched both by the Black Hand and a former CIA agent, Alexandra Trapp, who is only partially aware of who’s pulling her strings. And weredog former senator Sondra is hoping her husband, a current senator, can push through a bill establishing legal protection for monsters; she’s keeping a lower profile in hope of concealing her monster identity as well as her presence at a bloody pro-monster rally in Boston three years ago. Will more established pro-monster forces emerge from the shadows before large-scale tragedy strikes? Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, Calvin continues to escape his troubled personal life in sleep, where he secretly observes the events occurring in the “monsterverse” and other universes, a practice which may prove more dangerous than he knows. Turnbull packs a lot of plot and character development in a fairly compact set of pages, using his story to explore complex issues of prejudice, intersectionality, and personal identity, as well as the scars left by the darker parts of one’s past. As in the first book, he also devotes considerable time to not-so-subtly endorsing the model of worker-owned, non-hierarchical cooperative networks. Rather than a jarring insertion into the plot, this helps highlight a key intersectionality issue: Even idealists may not be open to all ideas and varieties of people, particularly when they are afraid.
Rich, brilliant, and often sad, because this contemporary fantasy pulls no punches; blood will regretfully be spilled.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781982603755
Page Count: 342
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
A unique concept that promises readers will find at least one, if not three, entwined but different narratives to enjoy.
When Vis is copied into two other realities, he must stop a god from repeatedly culling almost everyone back home.
Thousands of years ago, to prevent the Concurrence from enslaving everyone, the world was split into three near-identical copies: Res, Obiteum, and Luceum. To exist in all three worlds, to wield Will there, is to achieve synchronism. After the events in The Will of the Many (2023), which cost Vis his arm and the life of his friend, Vis achieves Synchronism. While Res-Vis must continue to play Hierarchy politics to find his friend’s killer, Obiteum-Vis finds a ruined world, where the dead are reanimated and used by Ka, the Concurrence, and the only other person to exist in synchronism. Meanwhile, Luceum-Vis is forced into a dispute between druids, their High Council, and their kings—with one king intent on killing him—and Vis has no idea why. On all worlds, Vis is as shrewd as ever, weighing his options, planning ahead, and doing what he must to survive. However, he, too, slowly diverges, doing things he swore he never would: cede his Will, use Will to control someone else, and reveal his true name. If at least one Vis cannot use his synchronism and power of Will to kill the Concurrence, no Vis will be safe, and another Cataclysm will cull those he loves on Res. Book Two of the Hierarchy series is a speculative fantasy that is at once Egyptian post-apocalyptic, Celtic medieval, and Roman dystopian, thanks to the multidimensional setting. Although the sprawling narrative at times overextends itself, Islington rewards patient readers with a compelling story, a cast of complex and diverse characters, and a glimpse into how far a good man can go before he’s lost. A symbol at the start of each chapter delineates which world and Vis it’s about. Readers should read The Will of the Many before attempting this volume, or they may be confused for the first several chapters and beyond.
A unique concept that promises readers will find at least one, if not three, entwined but different narratives to enjoy.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781982141233
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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