An enticing story about a family and immortality that blends robust storytelling and magical realism.
In Piper’s novel, a Texas woman finds a rare salamander that gives the gift of eternal life.
Juliet Andro unhappily works as a nurse at Heaven Haven, a health retreat near Austin on land that her family has owned for generations. She’d rather do almost anything else and would dearly love to use her degree in avionics engineering, but the family expects her to work for several years as a nurse at the spa. While out walking the property, she finds a mysterious cave that she feels is alive (“She felt as though she was shrinking inside the guts of a living stone creature, a creature she had disturbed by her intrusion”). Juliet notices a faint blue light coming from a pool of salamanders. Oddly, they are luminescent, and there is a queen perched on a rock ledge that has a bump behind a sort of amphibian horn. She touches it and finds that the bump secretes a strong hallucinogen. Later visits to the cave prove more dramatic and curious: The queen pierces the body of another salamander, transfers its immortal powers to that creature, and dies, leaving only one queen. Juliet figures the substance can be harnessed and marketed as a fountain of youth drug, but she must protect the source. And will this even work on humans in addition to salamanders? The discovery is amazing, but Juliet knows it has the potential to destroy her family and everyone around her. Piper’s intriguing premise strictly follows its own sound logic and captures the imagination. The narrative stays grounded by the frequent references to family politics (Texas-style and otherwise), concerns about career goals, and difficult or stunted relationships. Perhaps it’s inevitable that a monumental discovery like the blue queen comes with the potential to ruin everything, but this novel’s multigenerational take on the fountain of youth elixir is exciting to read.
An enticing story about a family and immortality that blends robust storytelling and magical realism.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2025
ISBN: 9798308819813
Page Count: 362
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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