A bracing dystopian tale that deftly mixes magic, evolution, and romance.
A debut post-apocalyptic novel presents a fateful encounter between two young people from different sides of a catastrophic war.
Thousands of years in the future, Earth suffers the ill effects of a long-standing war, and evolution has taken humans to new heights and diverse branches. The surviving few live on opposite sides of the planet: some in The Homeland, where citizens permanently uplink to the Stoven collective, and others in Moria, where magic reigns supreme. When a young man from The Homeland named Belex Deralk-Almd crashes on Moria, all his biosystems are disconnected; his memory is fuzzy; and, to his horror, he finds himself trapped in “MagicLand,” where savage people disavow science and embrace aging and death. But he also discovers, in the midst of all the ugliness, “a mystical, hidden factor of beauty that restrained his hatred.” One of those beauties is 17-year-old Aurilena, a gifted magician. When she finds the crash survivor, she is immediately wary of this potential enemy, but she is also attracted to his differences. Against all odds, Belex and Aurilena start to fall for each other. As they investigate why Belex is in Moria, they realize not only that everything they know about their respective cultures is a lie, but that they have roles to play in the next step of their evolution as well. In this promising first novel, Bastille introduces a world that features a surprisingly well-balanced mishmash of genres with robust elements of SF, fantasy, and romance all wrapped up in a post-apocalyptic package. From Belex’s relationship with his body’s augmentations to Aurilena’s empathic connection to Moria, the absorbing story examines the seemingly conflicting ways these new types of humans engage with the world, suggesting a balance can be found. But Moria’s magic system comes with strong religious undertones that become progressively prevalent toward the tale’s open-ended climax. Readers will enjoy trying to spot the truth in the novel’s unreliable narrative about war and history while navigating Belex’s lack of memory and Aurilena’s reliance on disputable sources.
A bracing dystopian tale that deftly mixes magic, evolution, and romance.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-63195-564-8
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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