An eerie and imaginative melding of history and fantasy.
History, trauma, and folklore intertwine in a Ukrainian immigrant’s American dream in Gomel’s novel.
Alyona “Ally” Morris is a recently married Ukrainian immigrant determined to live the American dream upon escaping the violence and instability she faced during the fall of the Soviet Union. She’s convinced that she can be the golden-haired, youthful counterpart to her middle-aged, wealthy husband, Carl. Ally navigates her new life, feeling alienated as an immigrant while pondering the mysterious death of Carl’s first wife and her own tragic past. She also seeks to familiarize herself with the endless, shadowy landscape of redwoods. One night, her husband is abducted by forces beyond her understanding. Her home of Berkeley, California, is revealed to be intertwined with Nightwood, a land where folklore and fairy tales collide with real-life history. Time is controlled by what appear to be ominous Red, White, and Black Horsemen, and Ally finds herself enslaved by Little Mother, a tiny being with “gossamer-thin hair” whose farmyard contains grotesque creatures. As she navigates Nightwood, armed only with three magic items that look like ordinary objects (a comb, matches, and a handkerchief), Ally meets people from the past and present, including figures from her own life, who are trapped in the strange land as darker, more troubled versions of themselves. Ultimately, she must confront the terrifying ruler of Nightwood, the Ogre in the Castle With No Windows, as well as her own demons. The key theme of Gomel’s novel is that “All fairytales had been history once,” and to that end, it effectively combines classic tropes of fantasy and folklore, such as talking human-animal hybrids and a hero on a quest, with characters affected and motivated by very real present and historical traumas, ranging from the Holocaust to the trafficking and abuse of Nigerian girls. The inclusion of a large cast of characters in increasingly convoluted situations can make the work a confusing read at times. Despite this, the novel is unquestionably an intensely creative, hard-hitting work with a suspenseful storyline and empathetic yet critical deliberations on human suffering.
An eerie and imaginative melding of history and fantasy.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2022
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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