An enchanting romantic fantasy.
In this debut novel, a series of unusual dreams and occurrences leads a restoration expert to memories of her past and a long-lost love.
Caelin Wenriel restores the delicate artifacts of Elowen’s Fall, a city nearly destroyed centuries ago by a devastating collapse. She is especially intrigued by the glyphs that offer glimpses into the history of Elowen’s Fall and the magic that enchants the city. As her work progresses, Caelin has a series of cryptic dreams in which she sports violet wings and falls while hearing a man call her by a different name. When she wakes up, she experiences a burning sensation along her collarbone. Then the glyphs she studies respond to her touch, and violets bloom in unexpected places. Meanwhile, a man named Lucan Thiros awakens after spending centuries in a tomb deep within Elowen’s Fall. A revenant, Lucan has returned from the dead so he can reconnect with the woman who shares his “soulmark,” the hero who sacrificed her divinity for love. That woman is Caelin, but she has no memory of Lucan or the events that led to her losing her divinity. Drawn to the revenant, Caelin soon finds herself in a race to recover her memories and choose her destiny before Lucan is lost to her forever. Novane’s captivating novel unfurls like a fairy tale replete with dynamic characters and a nimble, fast-paced narrative. Caelin is a vibrant protagonist whose empathy guides her work as a restoration expert and her dealings with Lucan. Her relationship with Lucan unfolds at a leisurely pace as she tries to retrieve her memories of their lost love. The author’s prose is lush and lyrical, especially when describing the effects of Lucan’s state as a revenant (“His fingers dissolved first, transparency creeping up his arms like frost on glass”). That said, while the descriptions are strong, elements of Caelin’s backstory are lacking. For example, considering her work as a restoration expert, additional details about her family would have provided insights into her long connection with Elowen’s Fall.
An enchanting romantic fantasy.Pub Date: July 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781967942046
Page Count: 289
Publisher: Novane Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025
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
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
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