A fast-paced adventure that’s likely to please fans of the series.
In Slayton’s latest fantasy-series installment, Adam Binder knows two things: Immortals have rules, and a deal always comes with a catch.
Warlock Adam Binder was supposed to kill John Binder, his evil warlock ancestor, but instead he and the man Adam loves, Vicente “Vic” Martinez, used their combined powers and sent John somewhere deep in the underworld. Unfortunately, Jodi, Adam’s unstable cousin, pushed Vic into the portal as well and fell into it herself. Adam seeks an answer from Death on where Vic is and how to get him back. As it turns out, Death wants Adam to retrieve a mysterious woman named Melody, nicknamed Mel, from the underworld along with Vic. Adam sets off with his brother Bobby and elf friend Vran in his old Oldsmobile Cutlass on the road to the underworld. Along the way, they’ll meet unknown dangers, including demons in various forms. Adam will have to be careful, smart, and a bit lucky to find Vic before something sinister finds him first; he must also make good on a deal with Seamus, the leprechaun who’s the Guardian of the Western Watchtower, and kill John. Meanwhile, Vic and Jodi try to survive the weird, unpredictable place in which they find themselves. While held captive by otherworldly beings, they meet Mel, who’s been in the underworld since 1935 but has very little memory of her old life. Slayton returns to his series with a fantastic third installment that’s full of adventure and intrigue. However, it also features a good deal of angst and heartache, as the protagonist contends with many deals and many rules to get his boyfriend back: “Everything was a transaction, every conversation a chess match.” Adam is depicted as a dynamic and complex hero to whom readers will easily relate; they’ll sympathize with his problems with immortal beings as well as his challenging family relationships. Secondary characters, such as Bobby, Vran, Vic, and Jodi, are offbeat and engaging, adding to the story and supporting the complex worldbuilding.
A fast-paced adventure that’s likely to please fans of the series.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 9798212256308
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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