A wild ride clogged by a surfeit of explanations on the fly.
An anti-magic cop in an anti-magic country gets sucked into a plot pitting established magicians against insurgent magicians.
Called to the scene of a fatal fire, recently widowed Interpol agent Jackson Burnett finds every indication that Bernard Bouchon, the wealthy head of a timepiece manufacturing firm, and his wife, who runs her own interior design company, have perished along with their two children. But the forensic evidence soon vanishes more or less before the variably observant eyes of Jackson and Luca Tami, the blind Talent who’s been seconded from Brussels to help him. Luca, who can see a lot of things Jackson’s eyes miss, tells him that their records of the deaths will disappear soon, along with their memories of the incident. Interpol’s remit has changed quite a bit since the 21st century—it’s now “tasked with policing magic and Talents, those gifted in the arcane arts”—so Jackson’s an obvious candidate to investigate the case. Not so his friend Simeon Baehr, a straight-arrow detective from Geneva’s serious crimes division. So Jackson asks his boss if he and Luca can be joined by Inspector Krys Duprey, an Egyptian Canadian Ethiopian Interpol prodigy who turns out to be another Talent herself, and they go up against the forces intent on taking down the seven Institutes of Magic. Switzerland has outlawed magic for 700 years, but such bans have merely driven the Institutes underground, not put them out of business, and veteran Bunn supplies scene after scene of otherworldly combat and conscientiously expository dialogue. Alert readers will quickly sort out the hierarchy that puts Acolytes below Talents, then Adepts, then Directors; others will be dragged along in bemusement.
A wild ride clogged by a surfeit of explanations on the fly.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-44830-844-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
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
Devoted series fans will appreciate the added pieces to this expansive narrative puzzle.
After 500 years, the Grief of Ages is a distant memory—until dragons hellbent on destruction begin to wake again.
In this relatively brief prequel to the epic The Priory of the Orange Tree (2019), the kingdoms of Virtudom have experienced centuries of relative peace. Marosa Vetalda, the Princess of Yscalin, spends her days behind castle walls under the gaze of her overprotective father, awaiting the date when she’ll be wed to Aubrecht of Mentendon, her ticket to freedom. While the book’s main focus is initially on the political threads weaving the Western kingdoms together, the frailty of best-laid plans is exposed when evidence of the reemergence of draconic beings reaches castle ears. These tales often come from the cullers who make their living slaying these creatures, and who are often blamed for intentionally waking them for profit. No one alive remembers the Grief of Ages, so no one’s prepared when Fýredel, the great High Western dragon, surfaces from the volcanic mountain that towers ominously over Yscalin’s capital city of Cárscaro. What follows is the backstory of how the devoted Yscali kingdom comes to shift allegiance to Fýredel and his master, the Nameless One, a main catalyst to events in The Priory. Overall, this book reads more like history lesson than fantasy adventure, but the sheer terror that befalls the Yscali people as they face Fýredel’s pure evil is both powerful and relevant. Marosa’s plight further solidifies her as a hero worth remembering; her strength and defiance shine through as hope for the future she’s dreamed of slowly flickers out.
Devoted series fans will appreciate the added pieces to this expansive narrative puzzle.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781639736010
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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