An animated cast energizes this grand tale of faraway kingdoms and magic.
This fantasy sequel finds a commander juggling his royal duties, his engagement, and the desperate search for his sister.
Jasce Farone, commander of the Paladin Guard, may have too many irons in the fire. He yearns to track down his younger sister, Jaida, who he learned only recently is still alive. But the queen of the Pandaren kingdom demands that he look into the spate of missing Spectrals, people who wield magic like Jasce. Moreover, Pandaren is hosting the Gathering, a peaceful assembly of delegates from the five kingdoms, which hasn’t happened in 20 years. As everyone comes together, one of the queens has her eye on Jasce, earning justified glares from the commander’s fiancee, Kenz Haring. This diabolical queen claims to know where Jaida is and will tell Jasce if he recovers the Empower Stone, a potent section of the Heart of Pandaren—the reputed source of Spectrals’ magic. Such power may be too much temptation for Jasce, once a savage assassin. While a good life with Kenz awaits on the horizon, Jasce fears he can’t escape the “monster” he’s been suppressing. Sanchez’s follow-up to Chasing the Darkness (2021) squeezes a huge cast into its lively narrative. This results in an abundance of engaging subplots, including Spectrals battling “Snatchers,” creatures inexplicably immune to magic, and secrets on both sides straining Jasce and Kenz’s relationship and endangering their future. There are likewise myriad styles of magic across the five kingdoms, from the elemental kind to “Shade Walking,” in which the user hides in or travels through shadows. The characters are so multifaceted and unpredictable that villains are charming; allies are occasionally aloof; and Jasce doesn’t even trust himself. Some players return from the first installment, which Sanchez masterfully ties to this volume with obliging but never overwhelming nods to earlier events. The exhilarating final act opens the door to an unexpected denouement that only intensifies the saga.
An animated cast energizes this grand tale of faraway kingdoms and magic.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 383
Publisher: Silver Labs Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2022
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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