A rich fantasy narrative with beautiful illustrations that will keep readers glued to the pages.
In Catuhe’s coming-of-age fantasy novel, two magically gifted teens discover that their world is not as it seems.
Young Menilmonea goes out looking for the various kinds of mushrooms that she uses in her healing arts; thanks to her ability to speak to them (a version of mycomancy), the mushrooms themselves aid her in her search. She and her best friend, Aureal, both have gifts—Aureal can sense and speak with animals—but they seem to be unique in this regard. These gifts are from the Mother, as their village Titan (Tunka, a giant tortoise and magical protector) tells them. When Tunka sinks into such a deep sleep that not even Menilmonea’s mushrooms can awaken him, she and Aureal set out for the next village over to seek help from another Titan. Upon learning that this Titan is also in a deep sleep, Aureal and Menil find themselves on the verge of panic. Traveling to the nearest Tower, where villagers customarily meet the Mother to Ascend (“Its stone walls, streaked with flashes of pure energy, appeared older than the very world”), the two again find their expectations dashed; the Mother is not at the Tower waiting to help them. Instead, they find a portal that can take them to different places around the world. As they search distant lands for a solution, they learn that the Mother may not be what they’ve been told, and that the world is a bigger, scarier place than they could have ever imagined. Catuhe limns a world that grows richer and deeper as the protagonists explore beyond their small village. Readers will vividly feel the friends’ curiosity and fear as they learn that so much of what they’ve based their lives upon may be lies. The work includes the author’s gorgeous full-color digital illustrations, which emphasize the beauty and strangeness of the world within. This novel is the first in a series; readers will eagerly anticipate the following installment.
A rich fantasy narrative with beautiful illustrations that will keep readers glued to the pages.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2025
ISBN: 9798991989343
Page Count: 291
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.
The conclusion to the Villains trilogy asks, In a world where there are no heroes, what does victory really mean?
Schwab’s world is one where violent near-death experiences can engender ExtraOrdinaries, people who come back to life with a new superpowered ability, but lacking empathy, patience, and a variety of other, gentler qualities. In this installment, Victor Vale is becoming increasingly desperate; ever since Sydney Clarke used her power to bring him back from the dead, control over his own ability to cause and dampen pain has been slipping. Sydney herself is chafing against her life on the run with Victor’s protective ex-cellmate, Mitch Turner, and struggling with missing both Victor and her dead sister, Serena, whom she might not be able to resurrect—and definitely shouldn’t. Meanwhile, a psychiatrist, Dr. Gabriel Gray, discovers the existence of ExtraOrdinary people and seeks to harness their power for himself with tragic consequences for himself and many other people. Because the narrative skips around in time, it becomes clear fairly early that a final conflict is looming at EON, a high-tech facility where ExtraOrdinaries are imprisoned and experimented upon. This series has really lived up to its title; while antiheroes and villains have been popular protagonists for quite some time, not every writer is willing to lean into the darkness as hard as Schwab does. Some of her characters were psychopaths even before their near-death traumas, which means they didn’t have much moral fiber to begin with. And even the people who are basically good do a lot of bad and often foolish things when faced with a crisis…and there are a lot of crises. The strength of this series lies in Schwab’s ExtraOrdinary power to make you care for many of these incredibly rash, ethically dubious—some verging on irredeemable—characters anyway. As a result, the story rises above the usual grimdark cynical slog; instead, this is a gripping and nuanced saga with an ending that feels both inevitable and well earned.
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781250192233
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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