Less is more, even in epic fantasy romance.
Asar and Mische reunite to steal the power of a god in the fourth installment of Broadbent’s Crowns of Nyaxia series.
After the dramatic conclusion of the previous novel, The Songbird & the Heart of Stone (2024), Mische is dead and in the underworld. She’s greeted by Vincent, the long-dead vampire king of the House of Night, who shows her how the underworld is literally cracking at the seams. It’s supposed to be a safe place, where souls are judged and pass through on their way to the final oblivion of true death. But the underworld Mische finds herself in is filled with monsters that eat souls, and she sees literal tears in reality that bleed like physical wounds. As Vincent explains, when Mische saved her lover, Asar, from being sacrificed at the end of the previous book, important relics that were holding the underworld together wound up being destroyed. Asar, meanwhile, has been imprisoned by the gods of the White Pantheon. Instead of killing Asar, the botched sacrifice gave him a god’s power, and the other gods aren’t interested in sharing. Except for one god, whom Vincent refuses to name, who has offered Mische a chance to rejoin Asar so they can both escape the White Pantheon’s clutches. If Mische accepts this offer of help, there’s a chance that she and Asar could outrun the gods long enough to secure Asar enough power to repair the underworld and obtain true divinity. If they fail, the problems afflicting the underworld will eventually spread, the mortal and vampire worlds will also crumble, and Mische will slip back into death—permanently. Broadbent has a solid technical grasp on writing action and romance scenes and keeps a firm track of characters and space as the head-spinning action progresses. As a vampire-themed dark fantasy, the book has lots of dramatic violence and plenty of monsters, but it all flits by without much narrative consequence because there’s simply so much going on.
Less is more, even in epic fantasy romance.Pub Date: tomorrow
ISBN: 9781250367815
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bramble Books
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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