An entertaining, imaginative post-apocalyptic scenario with special appeal for animal lovers.
A rebel rabbit turns the world of predators and prey on its head in this debut fantasy.
Some centuries in the future, humans—now called the Dead Gods—and many animals are extinct. According to History of the Known World by Thimble Thimbalian, “Only six kinds of creatures were left in the Million Acre Wood for the canids to hunt: Deer, raccoon, rabbit, squirrel, rat, mouse.” Rabbits believe Yah has decreed they must be Glorified by a Blessed One, or, in other words, become a predator’s meal, accepting their fate in a surrender called the Giving. It’s a dictum unquestioned by all but Anastasia, a brown yearling rabbit living in Bloody Thorn Warren. When she’s injured escaping from a Blessed One, she returns to the warren, endangering it; maybe worse, she publicly questions the mercy of Yah. Since the barren Anastasia is already something of a problem doe, this is the last straw for Olympia, the Warren Mother, who orders exile. Now, without a warren, Anastasia is enormously vulnerable, but she accidentally stabs an attacking fox with a sharpened stick, driving it off. What if next time, she could do it on purpose? As she works out strategies, stragglers from other warrens join Anastasia, who trains them and makes alliances with other prey. In exchange for nut storage, squirrels serve as sentries, and mice lend their tiny hands to making weaponry from supplies bought from Bricabrac, a water rat tinker. Meanwhile, disbelieving predators encounter fierce resistance when they target the Warren Sans Gloire, as Anastasia’s settlement is dubbed. Wolves are the landlords of the Million Acre Wood and coyotes have always collected the rent for them successfully, but now the predators are getting very hungry. This means war—and the rabbits are ready.
In his series opener, St. John presents a world similar in some ways to Richard Adams’ Watership Down (1972), where rabbits (and other animals) have language, culture, myths, and games. That said, the post-apocalyptic, apparently North American setting is far different; the points of view and abilities are more varied (a few animals are somehow able to read, piecing together what they can from texts left by the Dead Gods); and dialogue reflects human culture. A flirtatious buck named Love Bug, for example, employs rabbit-inflected pickup lines (“Did you thump just now, or was that the earth moving under my feet?”); Bricabrac calls himself “a businessrat.” Naming conventions are varied and often amusing, especially the tiny mice with names like Throat Punch, Death Rage, and Moody Loner. The premise of prey learning to fight back is intriguing but puzzling. How can carnivorous animals like wolves and foxes survive without prey? Able to reproduce without check, wouldn’t creatures like rabbits soon eat everything in sight? Perhaps the balance-of-nature question will be answered in future installments; readers are likely to want to stay tuned.
An entertaining, imaginative post-apocalyptic scenario with special appeal for animal lovers. (Fantasy, 12+)Pub Date: June 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-688570-3
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Harvest Oak Press
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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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