A spirited and inventive concept that stumbles in its execution.
St. Helen offers an enchanted tale that reimagines more than one of William Shakespeare’s plays.
Rosaline Capulet, cousin to Juliet, finds herself the unwilling object of Romeo Montague’s affection. While Juliet longs for a love match after learning she’s to be betrothed to Count Paris, Rosaline dreams only of studying magic at La Fortezza—the convent and secret magic academy to which she’s been recruited. In a last-ditch effort to help her cousin and her ill-fated admirer, Rosaline uses her limited magic skills to make the two fall in love, unknowingly setting in motion the events that would lead to their tragic deaths. At La Fortezza, however, Rosaline embraces her newfound freedom and adopts the name Foschia “Lumi” Luminosa—but before her studies begin, she meets an enigmatic teacher, Syra, who reveals the unintended harm she’s caused. Having already broken La Fortezza’s rule to “only do good,” Lumi is tasked with righting her wrong, but she’s paired with an unlikely partner: Freddi, a gifted swordswoman with surprising ties to Lumi’s past. Their mission soon expands when Syra sends them to save her long-lost son, Caliban, who’s been imprisoned on an island by the magician Prospero. Although the novel ambitiously intertwines two beloved plays (Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest) in a Shakespearean farce of hidden identities and misdirection, the ties between the narratives often feel strained, relying heavily on conveniently similar names to advance the plot. Character development is similarly thin; although both Lumi and Freddi experience growth, there’s little in the story to spark these shifts, leaving their transformations feeling sudden and unconvincing. Indeed, Juliet emerges as the most fully developed character, despite being present for only half the novel, as her willingness to embrace hardship for love (“Oh, Rosaline, laugh at me if you want but I want to love my husband”) gives her arc a clarity and emotional logic that the others lack. Lumi and Freddi, by contrast, lack the depth to elevate them beyond their proscribed roles.
A spirited and inventive concept that stumbles in its execution.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781942737377
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Cantraip Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A freewheeling, action-packed fantasy with a dash of romance.
Kova offers a fantasy novel set beyond the Nightgale Mountains in the walled fortress of Vinguard where citizens live in fear of the next deadly dragon attack.
Vinguard’s residents are always on guard against the threat of dragons, but they must watch more than just the skies. Living among them, hiding in plain sight, are the “dragon cursed”—people who, at any moment, may transform into terrifying winged beasts and destroy the city from within. For most of Isola Thaz’s life, she’s been told she’s the reincarnated savior of Vinguard. But just as she begins to suspect that she may be dragon cursed, she’s tossed into Vinguard’s Tribunal—a contest in which every 18-year-old competes in tests of skill and might to separate loyal citizens from the dragon cursed. As she’s sequestered for this rite of passage, Isola hesitantly allies herself with a handsome fellow competitor named Lucan. However, as the teens face such trials as fire-breathing automatons (“The silver beast comes to life with a swing. Its claws shear through the dim light”), starvation, and actual dragons while unarmed, Isola begins to feel that Vinguard’s traditions come at a cost that’s too steep. Meanwhile, Vicar Darius, Lucan’s father and the leader of Vinguard’s shadowy theocracy, the Creed, is desperate to take Isola’s powers for himself—and, to that end, he puts her into increasingly tortuous situations. However, neither he, nor Isola’s teenage rivals, are very compelling antagonists; instead, they come across as caricatures of cruelty. Still, the novel is fast-paced and action-oriented with a punchy prose that prioritizes movement over fantasy aesthetics. A sometimes-fraught romance between Isola and Lucan slowly blooms, but Isola’s relationship with her family forms the true emotional core of the narrative. Although the worldbuilding in fairly simple, the story sets up a massive mystery that promises big payoffs in a potential future installment.
A freewheeling, action-packed fantasy with a dash of romance.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781649377838
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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