A fantasy in which the author, through her divine cast, maintains a slow-boiling narrative.
In this fantasy sequel, the godlike Sakrosians disagree among themselves about whether or not the humanoid Fledglings should embrace violence to survive.
The Sakrosians, beings who manifest themselves and their city from a communal energy source, have taken up residence on Gaia. Those who wanted to explore the planet, both physically and through biological senses, decided to enter the evolutionary chain and become humanoid Fledglings. One group of Fledglings has succeeded in traversing the Great Divide and is now poised to start a new village in the wilds of Terrenor. This pleases El, the Sakrosian Seer, as well as the rest of the Council. And yet El and Lita the Prophetess begin to suspect that some Council members may be thwarting the Directive of keeping the Fledglings safe. For example, El uses her power to witness the Sakrosians Kostr and Ved give bladed weapons to a Fledgling. Worse, Council Leader Ak seems willing to manipulate anyone for reasons that are unclear. Meanwhile, the Fledgling Raf survived his battle with Telek during the Great Divide’s crossing—but Telek didn’t. Raf meets the forest dweller Behra, and together they encounter a burned village. Eventually Raf reunites with his Fledgling companions, and he joins them in the village of Newyk. But whoever torched Behra’s home remains at large. DeLaurentis adds heat to her tale of meddlesome deities and noble humanoids slowly but steadily. The Sakrosians, who can create clothing and furniture with a gesture, often come across as emotionally reserved, like Vulcans in the Star Trekuniverse. Indeed, they push the Fledglings toward greatness via expressions of love, which is, according to the Directive, “a more profound experience than what Sakrosians can achieve.” Yet danger lies in humanoid arrogance, which readily bleeds into Ak’s secret mission (“Some may need to be sacrificed to save many”). Though Ak plays El, Lita, and others like puppets, resulting in fatal chaos, he doesn’t possess the capacity for true villainy. The narrative splits evenly among Sakrosians and Fledglings, but the author keeps all under tight control. The next volume may call for looser, more emotionally charged plotting.
A fantasy in which the author, through her divine cast, maintains a slow-boiling narrative.Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73379-203-5
Page Count: 486
Publisher: Writing Studio LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2020
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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