A free-wheeling, if sometimes meandering fantasy with two captivating heroes.
An adult fantasy novel stars an unlikely duo.
Capes introduces readers to Helisent West of Jaws. Some say Helisent is the most powerful witch in Mieira. Despite such a lofty reputation, Helisent often uses her magic for menial tasks and basic bartering. She can, for instance, clean the laundry at a tavern in exchange for drinks. Helisent has been searching for a witch named Oko for four years. Her reasons for seeking Oko are personal. Samson 714 Afador is also looking for Oko. Samson is a high-ranking wolf known as the “imminent Male Alpha of Velm,” meaning he will one day be the leader of his pack. In his position, he hears “unsolicited opinions and advice almost daily.” Samson searches for Oko, as she is likely the only one who knows the whereabouts of his mother (or her remains). As Helisent and Samson hunt Oko together, questions arise, namely: Can the two trust each other? The history between wolves and wielders (witches like Helisent) is a long and bloody one. As the relationship between the two protagonists deepens, things only become more complicated. Capes’ series opener often puts a playful twist on the fantasy genre. Helisent certainly likes cutting loose with substances like pear wine and a drug called dextro. Who knew witches liked to party? And though witches have their own guidelines to live by, Helisent’s hedonistic inclinations are in contrast to someone like Samson (“Wolves have a thousand rules for everything”). But explaining the intricacies of witches and wolves requires long stretches of exposition. Helisent, for instance, lived in a group called a warren. Everyone in a warren “has a specific responsibility, and every warren has slightly different rules.” Warren duties do not make for the most spellbinding reading. Yet as things turn ever more ribald (as when one character’s “cock twitches at the ready” in anticipation of a sexual encounter), there is much in this novel to keep readers intrigued.
A free-wheeling, if sometimes meandering fantasy with two captivating heroes.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9798986316703
Page Count: 514
Publisher: Capas LLC
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2023
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
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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