An engaging tale of prophecy and magic with solid characters and mythology.
In the beginnings of a war against a group of mysterious, magical beings, a young woman learns of her own connection to an ancient prophecy in Munger’s fantasy series-starter.
In the Kingdom of Lavonshia’s rural province of Dorak, 21-year-old Aurelia Talbot lives a quiet life with her father in a village called Chelam. It’s a peaceful place, unaffected by war or crime, but other parts of Lavonshia aren’t as lucky. Recently, the city of Saan was decimated, with the entire population disappearing. The accused perpetrators are members of a mysterious nearby group of clans called Gray Cloaks, who have magical abilities and maintain peaceful relations with Dorakians. A group of Gray Cloaks appear in Chelam and announce that the Ka—the king’s army—is headed their way, and that Aurelia’s in danger—and she must leave Chelam with the Gray Cloaks immediately. Aurelia departs with a Gray Cloak named Daphne, accompanied by best friend Eken and Col, the son of Chelam’s most prominent family, who wishes to marry Aurelia. Daphne reveals that Aurelia is at the center of a prophecy about a Storm Grazer: “one who rides the storm clouds and holds lightening in hand.” Meanwhile, the Ka are seeking the missing people of Saan, killing any Gray Cloaks they encounter. Ka soldier Magnus Alwyn is wracked with guilt after his unit massacres a Gray Cloak village, and he isn’t the only disillusioned soldier; later, Daphne saves him and his comrades from a pack of Shadow-Wolves. In this fantasy novel, Munger presents a tale of friendship, loyalty, and betrayal. The author’s love for the genre is palpable on every page; the compelling tale is populated with intriguing characters throughout, and the worldbuilding is convincing and sound. Readers are likely to enjoy the detailed and sometimes playful descriptions of the various players most of all; they include NoNo, a catlike creature who “possessed the peculiar ability to blend in with his surroundings, invisible to any who glanced his way. With a whisk of his tail, he became a stray bolt of cloth tumbling along the street, or a mischief of mice scurrying across a room.”
An engaging tale of prophecy and magic with solid characters and mythology.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781971248011
Page Count: 450
Publisher: True Mark Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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