A rewarding, passionate, and beautifully characterized duology closer.
The love between two of Saverio’s heroes is put to the ultimate test in Thiede’s exhilarating follow-up to This Vicious Grace (2022).
After defeating Crollo’s most recent Divorando, Finestra Alessa and Dante, her bodyguard-turned-lover whom she resurrected, look forward to moving on with their lives. But their battle with the scarabei—and Dante’s return to the living afterward—came with a price: Dante has become fully mortal, having lost his healing powers as a ghiotte, and Alessa has harnessed a harrowing ability to enter people’s minds. With the couple’s happily-ever-after remaining out of reach, Alessa’s nightmares and Dante’s troubling visions from Dea manifest when a friend, momentarily possessed, delivers an ominous message from the gods about another war to come. Dante; Alessa; Alessa’s twin brother, Adrick; and the team of Fonti who protected Saverio from the Divorando embark on a journey to find the other ghiotte—hiding in exile after centuries of persecution—and enlist their help to stop an even greater attack from Crollo during the next eclipse. Readers will fall deeper in love with Dante and Alessa, whose individual explorations of identity and self-love amid impending chaos are heart-wrenchingly honest. But it’s the portrayal of their growth as a pair—in a relationship that’s filled with endless flirty banter, mutual understanding, and acceptance of each other’s flaws—that is especially satisfying and wholesome. Characters vary in skin tone; there’s natural representation of queerness and disability.
A rewarding, passionate, and beautifully characterized duology closer. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781250794079
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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