An impressive and confident tale of two women finding love in a realm of shape-shifters.
In this fantasy debut, two shape-shifters form a bond that may change their world.
As Noon’s sprawling novel opens, readers find a mysterious woman named Aurora skulking through a mine that’s crawling with poisonous spiders. She’s hunting for valuable ethian crystals when she’s brought up short by the last thing she expects to encounter in such a dark, forbidding place: a beautiful song. Tracing the tune to its source, Aurora is enraged to find a cutter’s den: “A place of unimaginable horror, where shapeshifters were imprisoned while their bodies were systematically harvested for the high price their parts fetched on the black market.” Aurora lives in Nordarra, a region populated by many different, scattered clans of shape-shifters—mer-people, tiger-shifters, wolf-shifters, and avians, who can grow enormous wings out of their backs. These beings are presumably the descendants of the folks who came to Nordarra from the human world and were taught magic that allowed them to transform into shape-shifters. (Another theory is that those first human visitors were the servants of Nordarra’s original inhabitants and interbred with them.) In this realm, avians are frequently characterized as untrustworthy. It gives Aurora pause to discover that the song in the mine comes from a captive avian named Evie, but the two form a wary partnership. In exchange for Aurora’s dealing with the mine’s guards, Evie will fly them both to freedom. When Evie is injured and rendered temporarily flightless during their escape, the two are thrown into a close, earthbound struggle to survive—and to fulfill Aurora’s primal vow to track down all the parts of her father’s tiger form that were harvested by cutters years ago.
Noon handles the gradual unfolding of the story’s plots and subplots with a remarkably sure hand. Virtually none of debut novelists’ typical mistakes—clunky dialogue, incomplete concepts, and especially great blocks of undigested exposition—crop up in this book’s 500-plus pages. The political interplay of Nordarra’s various clans and factions is intelligently rendered as a backdrop for the tale’s central, most touching thread: Aurora’s and Evie’s (in reality, Evangeline Aquilar, oldest child of a powerful avian leader) gradually easing their personal and cultural barriers as their necessity-born friendship deepens into something more. The author has a straightforward, unadorned way of showing her characters clearly to readers, and it’s genuinely involving to watch Aurora overcome the lessons of her traumatic childhood in order to feel tender emotions again. The two women’s ongoing discovery of each other’s attributes is the story’s highlight. “You’re quite extraordinary and a little scary,” Aurora tells Evie at one point. “You’re like a kitten that looks all sweet and cuddly but you have sharp claws. Remind me never to cross you.” There are stretches in the narrative where Noon’s vivid personal revelation scenes almost overshadow the other pieces of the multifaceted plot structure, but these episodes are infrequent. The various levels of drama are usually kept in a balance that’s expertly maintained right through to the exciting (albeit, predictable) climactic scenes. The world of Nordarra—and the mechanics and psychology of shape-shifting—is drawn with an appealing intricacy that will make readers hope to return to this setting in future novels.
An impressive and confident tale of two women finding love in a realm of shape-shifters.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-473-50513-4
Page Count: 543
Publisher: Bluefire Books Ltd.
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Gwynne’s effort pales in comparison to George R.R. Martin’s gold-standard work, but it’s nothing bad; the story grinds to a...
A middling Middle Earth–ish extravaganza with all the usual thrills, chills, spills and frills.
All modern fantasy begins with J.R.R. Tolkien, and Tolkien begins with the Icelandic sagas and the Mabinogion. Debut author Gwynne’s overstuffed but slow-moving contribution to the genre—the first in a series, of course—wears the latter source on its sleeve: “Fionn ap Toin, Marrock ben Rhagor, why do you come here on this first day of the Birth Moon?” Why, indeed? Well, therein hangs the tale. The protagonist is a 14-year-old commoner named Corban, son of a swineherd, who, as happens in such things, turns out to be more resourceful than his porcine-production background might suggest. There are bad doings afoot in Tintagel—beg pardon, the Banished Lands—where nobles plot against nobles even as there are stirrings of renewed titanomachia, that war between giants and humans having given the place some of its gloominess. There’s treachery aplenty, peppered with odd episodes inspired by other sources, such as an Androcles-and-lion moment in which Corban rescues a fierce wolven (“rarely seen here, preferring the south of Ardan, regions of deep forest and sweeping moors, where the auroch herds roamed”). It’s a good move: You never can tell when a wolven ally will come in handy, especially when there are wyrms around.
Gwynne’s effort pales in comparison to George R.R. Martin’s gold-standard work, but it’s nothing bad; the story grinds to a halt at points, but at others, there’s plenty of action.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-39973-9
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
An emotionally charged and passionate farewell to an invigorating fantasy series.
Godhood is close at hand for Séverin and his crew in the epic conclusion to the Gilded Wolves trilogy.
Immediately following the devastating events of The Silvered Serpents(2020), Séverin, now separated from his friends, possesses the divine lyre. It’s a legendary instrument that, when played within the sacred temple beneath Poveglia, or Plague Island, could grant godly powers—and Séverin’s lineage renders him its sole player. Ruslan, the diabolical patriarch of the Fallen House, is the key to finding said temple, and Séverin must tread carefully if he wants to rescue Laila, Enrique, Zofia, and Hypnos, who have lost faith in him after his seeming betrayal at the Sleeping Palace in Russia. With a single clue, they traverse Venice to reunite with Séverin because Laila’s days are numbered and Séverin’s fantastical desires may hold her last chance at living. Chokshi crafts a final magnificent adventure infused with exhilarating perils and diverse mythologies, characters, and languages. While Séverin’s undying love for Laila and fear of losing his friends are at the forefront of this story, every character is beloved and worthy of praise, each possessing unique gifts, drives, and histories, although comedic-relief Hypnos deserves more opportunities to shine. There is no question that this is the end, and readers invested since the first installment will hold this last story close to their hearts.
An emotionally charged and passionate farewell to an invigorating fantasy series. (Historical fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-14460-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2021
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