A bloody love letter to Norse mythology.
A Swedish girl must venture into the heart of ancient legends when her beloved grandmother disappears.
After Amma vanishes into the forest that’s home to the Hidden Folk, 17-year-old Astrid Skarsgård leaves Stockholm for the small village of her childhood. While searching for clues, Astrid finds a note from Amma telling her to follow the path into the Tiveden forest beyond the stave church, a place shunned by locals. Astrid’s skeptical of her grandmother’s folktales, but her disbelief is shattered when she finds a hidden cellar in Amma’s house containing a sleeping draugr, or undead creature, named Soren. After accidentally waking Soren, she learns he’s the lover of Skaga, her distant foremother who imprisoned him there. Soren wants to find Skaga and break the blood oath that’s destroying Tiveden, and together they journey into the forest, where they encounter nightmarish creatures and undead ancestors, growing closer as they face dangers. Through visions of Skaga, Astrid learns of her village’s violent history and realizes she’s a pawn in an age-old war between villagers and the Hidden Folk, forcing her to choose between love and family. Debut author Seitz intersperses passages narrated by Skaga into Astrid’s first-person account, weaving an impressive backstory deeply rooted in pagan beliefs. Astrid’s story expertly conveys her pain as she unravels her family’s secrets and her own destiny. Astrid is immunocompromised and has Crohn’s disease.
A bloody love letter to Norse mythology. (author’s note with content warning and link to pronunciation guide) (Dark fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781665959926
Page Count: 416
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Somberly beautiful.
A girl goes in search of her missing sister and discovers a strange hidden world of dreams.
Corin, who’s 18 and dark-skinned, strives to protect her 12-year-old sister, Elly. But life as a thief is full of struggle, poverty, and loss, even without Corin’s avoidance of other relationships. Elly clings to the promise of fairy tales, like the one that says a princess lies sleeping in an underground castle after pricking her finger on a spindle. After the sisters fight and Elly runs off, Corin searches for her in Gyldan’s old network of tunnels—and finds the tale is true: Cursed Princess Amelia, golden-haired, with eyes like “sea glass” and porcelain skin, lies asleep, surrounded by flowers. Corin enters the princess’ dreamworld—the place “where your subconscious desires come to life.” She meets Briar Rose, Amelia’s alter ego, who experienced her share of sadness and wanted to fall asleep. Also in the dreamworld is green-skinned Malicine, the nonbinary demon who, despite having placed the curse of eternal slumber on Amelia, is mostly friendly. All three are running from things they can’t face, though the dreamworld may not give them a choice. Pham’s debut, a Sapphic reimagining of “Sleeping Beauty,” explores mental health and asks a lot of readers as it seesaws between emotional confrontations, time jumps, and scenes where one character inhabits the memories of another, all of which demand intense engagement. Still, the ending is earned as well as positive.
Somberly beautiful. (content note) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9798217113026
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Kokila
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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