A well-balanced romance/fantasy that fans of both genres can enjoy.
A vicious warrior learns about his fractured past and attempts to forge a brighter future in this fantasy debut.
Seventeen years ago, the kingdom of Pandaren defeated its enemies, the Vastanes. But the celebrations ended when an Air Spectral killed King Valeri. With Queen Valeri too ill to rule, Kenneth Brenet became the kingdom’s steward. Cmdr. Drexus Zoldac then created an elite team of Hunters to enforce new laws that made Spectrals, or magic users, second-class citizens. Now, Azrael, the best of the Hunters, takes a serum to gain Spectral powers. With most Spectrals registered or jailed, his Watch Guard scours the region for Amps, whose magic can be stolen and bestowed on Zoldac’s fighters. Yet when Azrael starts feeling sympathy for the villagers they terrorize, he’s set up and attacked on Zoldac’s orders. Badly injured, he’s tossed in Bradwick Prison. But soon, Azrael is rescued by the warriors Kord and Kenz Haring. They bring him to meet Amycus Reins, the Air Spectral wanted for the king’s death. So begins Azrael’s new life in Carhurst, where he learns that his real name is Jasce Farone. His mother, killed by a Spectral wielding black fire, was a Spectral herself—and so is he. Will the path of vengeance ruin Jasce’s chance for a normal life with the Harings, who see him as more than just a killer? Sanchez’s series opener is a robust blend of fantasy and romance, seeded with twists for a consistently rewarding read. Once the protagonist sheds his murderous persona, he nevertheless worries that Kenz, whom he gradually falls for, deserves someone with a clean past. A skillful, teasing eroticism laces the narrative, with Jasce and Kenz pining for each other, as in the lines “He inhaled her clean, citrus scent, his eyes dropping to her mouth,” and “She licked her lips, and desire punched him in the gut.” The violence is never overindulgent, though several heads do roll. By the end, Jasce’s familial dynamic has changed, both for good and ill. The sequel will have much to explore.
A well-balanced romance/fantasy that fans of both genres can enjoy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63195-609-6
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Morgan James Fiction
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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