An ambitious but unevenly executed adventure novel.
A novel about a hunt for a mysterious stone that offers its possessor the chance to rule Spain.
Hendry presents a debut novel that moves between the backwoods of Appalachia and the hallways of power in Madrid. Decades after a near-death experience in childhood, James “Jimmy-Mack” MacNaughton returns to the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, following the mysterious instructions of his longtime mentor. McNaughton sets off into the woods by himself, where he ends up in an abandoned cabin with connections to early Spanish and French explorers. He also finds the grave of a forgotten Spanish prince, and when he reaches out to a college professor to learn more about the deceased man, the query catches the attention of Diego Alcazar, a Spanish palace librarian. Alcazar, keeper of many secrets, understands that McNaughton has found proof of the location of the Corazón del Rey, a fabulous ruby with mystical powers that gives its holder great power. The librarian wants the ruby for himself, as do Catholic officials in Compostela, who want to break with Rome and establish their own traditionalist church. While McNaughton makes his way through the woods, learning more about how the prince and the magical gem are connected to the local Cherokee community and his own personal and family history, he faces a threat from the ambitious Spaniards. Over the course of the novel, Hendry presents a solid, creative storyline that holds together despite the book’s excessive length. The creativity extends even to minor plot developments, such as an encounter with a rattlesnake that will leave readers wincing in sympathy. However, the text would have been improved with a stronger edit to correct grammatical errors and awkward phrasing: “On occasion, requests for outside reviews of non-public manuscripts from pre-chosen institutions were generally approved.” There are also stereotypical portrayals (“The proud Native American ran his fingers over the damage, vowing never to look at his paralyzed face”) and factual inaccuracies, such as the fact that the land in Cherokee, North Carolina, is not a reservation.
An ambitious but unevenly executed adventure novel.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-578-85165-5
Page Count: 494
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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