A slyly engrossing tale that deftly combines fantasy and horror elements.
A town becomes beset by evil forces in this debut fantasy.
Norick is a place apart. A thousand leagues north of civilization, the town sits alone in a vast wilderness—and its inhabitants like it that way. They’ve grown rich off the resources of the land, though in time they’ve forgotten to keep an eye on the shadow-filled woods that surround them. As they begin celebrating the centennial of the town’s founding—a one-night festival of free food and beer—something untoward is unfolding on the fringes of the community. A magistrate finds a blackmail letter affixed to his door, demanding that he meet someone in a grove in one hour. A fisherman discovers that some of his tools have been stolen. The town’s oldest resident, a woman present at its founding, is behaving strangely, warning of a coming storm. A mother suffering from a vision tells her 10-year-old daughter: “It’s coming” and “You need to run.” Norick’s only defense is the Town Guard, a less-than-professional police force run by Capt. William Breeve. William has been a barely functional alcoholic since the death of his wife and child. Does he have it in him to save Norick from the enemy who is coming? Unfortunately, neither William nor Norick has much of a choice. In this series opener, Kruse’s prose is tight and brooding, summoning suspense out of Norick’s nighttime alleyways and forests: “The hour of chaos had come. William felt the horror of it then, but also the thrill. The world itself had gone mad—suddenly, irreparably mad. Everything was coming undone, loosening, the order of things cleaved apart.” The blend of horror and fantasy is an appealing one, and the author hops effectively among his large cast of characters. The story takes its time revving up, but once it gets going, it becomes a true page-turner. Since more books in the series are planned, perhaps inevitably readers will be left with the sense that Kruse has saved a lot of the good stuff for later. Even so, Norick is a fun place to visit for a while.
A slyly engrossing tale that deftly combines fantasy and horror elements.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73306-941-0
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Fire's Edge Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Dark magic, romance, and divinity.
What do you do when the voice in your head is real?
Lore, Bastian, and Gabe are all still alive following the events in The Foxglove King (2023), despite a ritual meant to take Lore’s life and usher in a new age for the god Apollius. But Lore, determined to live despite—or perhaps because of—her deep and unyielding connection to the magical death force Mortem, is unwilling to be used as a tool. Now that Bastian is no longer prince but Sainted King, Gabe is Priest Exalted, and Lore is the king’s deathwitch, her safety should be secure. The court, however, distrusts Lore and her uncanny powers, and even more dangerous are the gods, leaning ever closer and perhaps not so separate from the world as a thwarted ritual might imply. Bastian has been changing, able to control Spiritum, Mortem’s mirror image, in new and powerful ways, but also acting more erratic and strange. Meanwhile, the voice in Lore’s head is growing louder. To make matters worse, Gabe and Bastian can hardly look at each other, while Lore feels torn between the two of them and in need of both. In the second volume of the Nightshade Crown series, things go from bad to much worse, while a familiar gothic atmosphere looms oppressively around the characters. As Lore strives to keep as many people as safe as possible, others scheme with sinister forces and powerful magic. In a tense and atmospheric installment, Lore moves quickly between heart-pounding romantic encounters and adrenaline-filled moments facing danger and death.
Dark magic, romance, and divinity.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780316435291
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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