Never terribly fraught or demanding, but with a twisty plot and death-defying action, this romance delivers teen yearning...
Rileigh, or Senshi as she was once known, is a sassy high school girl in love with her boyfriend, Kim. It just so happens that her relationship with Kim has spanned 500 years—Rileigh is a powerful, reincarnated samurai warrior.
What begins as a date with the love of Rileigh’s many lives suddenly turns into a booty-kicking battle against ninjas. Next, Rileigh’s samurai nemesis, Whitley, whom she left for dead in the last book, Katana (2012), starts lurking around. Moreover, her friends seem to be in the grip of sinister mind control as Rileigh finds herself having to fight off surprise ninja attacks at every turn. But the real tragedy is that Kim suddenly dumps her for his thought-to-be-dead betrothed from the 1400s. Riding the subplot of teen romance, the story’s forward motion occasionally gets bogged down by repetition. Most interesting are the infrequent flashback chapters of Senshi in Japan when she’s on the verge of becoming a 15th-century courtesan. Eventually, the mastermind behind the havoc is discovered, and Rileigh must join forces with friends she thought foes and foes she thought friends in order to destroy the villain and save her life and her love.
Never terribly fraught or demanding, but with a twisty plot and death-defying action, this romance delivers teen yearning with martial arts kicks. (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)Pub Date: March 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7387-3261-9
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Flux
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
Satisfyingly packed with emotional insights, epic magic duels, and twisty intrigue.
Adraa and Jatin struggle to defend their people amid growing danger and mistrust.
Adraa, the heir to Belwar, is a gifted witch, an innovator, an Underground cage caster, and the heroic, masked Red Woman. Now, she is also either the savior of her people or the monster who tried to kill them all. On trial for causing the deadly eruption of Mount Gandhak, Adraa is framed as a villain, and her people lose faith in her as heir and in her family as rulers. Imprisoned in the impregnable Dome, Adraa struggles to hold on to her secrets and feelings of self-worth despite being plagued by insecurity and guilt. Jatin, heir to Naupure and the secret vigilante Night, gathers his friends and plans to free his love, Adraa, by any means necessary. In this action-packed sequel, familiar characters reappear and past plot threads weave seamlessly together as the fates of both kingdoms hang in the balance. While the villains are slightly one-dimensional, the treatments of topics such as guilt, secrets, grief, and the impact of drug use and abuse are intricate and well analyzed. They are balanced, often with humor, by themes of love, friendship, family, and community. Similarly, inequities between the Touched magic users and the Untouched, who cannot use magic, continue to be questioned. The story is set in a reimagined fantasy version of India, in which different kingdoms vary culturally and physically.
Satisfyingly packed with emotional insights, epic magic duels, and twisty intrigue. (Fantasy. 12-18)Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-12425-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Unexamined toxic masculinity makes this romance anything but.
A girl’s strained relationships with two brothers causes strife in this trilogy opener by Argentinian author Ron that’s translated from Spanish.
In the small American town of Carsville, Kamila Hamilton was friends with her neighbors the Di Bianco brothers. Taylor was Kami’s constant, kind companion; older brother Thiago grew increasingly antagonistic. When she was 10 and a half and he was 12, Thiago coerced Kami into her first kiss. Following the revelation of a family secret, the Di Biancos moved away, but a restraining order against Thiago led them to return to their old home after eight years without contact. But 20-year-old Thiago’s new job as assistant basketball coach at the high school where Taylor is on the team and 17-year-old Kami is a cheerleader brings the white-presenting trio into close contact, leading to tense confrontations over past events. Thiago and Kami’s interactions are marked by antagonism and lust (Thiago: “Accumulated rage, bitterness, hatred, and arousal….I could have taken her then and there, not even thinking of the consequences”; Kami: “I felt like a small, defenseless animal being hunted by a beast”). The softer and more empathetic Taylor tries to smooth things over. Thiago’s abuse of power—he uses his role as coach to confront and bully Kami—is uncomfortable and feels like a misguided attempt by the pair to process their traumatic history, which Ron purposefully reveals, making this overall read more cringeworthy than romantic.
Unexamined toxic masculinity makes this romance anything but. (Romance. 16-18)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781464234279
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bloom Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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