An ultimately satisfying final chapter to Kaner's grimdark fantasy trilogy.
A king who forbids religion becomes a god while a demigod searches for her place in the world in the conclusion to Kaner's Fallen Gods trilogy.
With the violent fire god Hseth reborn, King Arren and Lady Lessa Craier have put aside their differences to fight for Middren. Reunited with her old pirate crew, Lessa takes her daughter, the demigod Inara; Kissen, the godkiller; and Skediceth, the god of white lies, on a journey to drum up deific support for Middren. Meanwhile, Arren and his devoted baker-knight, Elo, ride out to meet Hseth and her armies on the front lines. But trouble awaits at every turn. Fighting Hseth head-on leads to devastating losses for Arren and Elo, and Inara's attempts at coaxing support out of a forge god leave Kissen fighting for her life. Alliances are tested, allies are killed, and the war rages on. Compared to Godkiller (2023) and Sunbringer (2024), the first two novels in Kaner's series, this one is a very slow burn, and the action never truly takes off. This, compounded with the deus ex machina ending, may leave some readers feeling disappointed. Fans of the earlier novels will find much to love here, though, as Kaner's well-developed characters compel the reader to keep the pages turning. As with the previous installments, the novel is refreshingly diverse. Elo and Kissen are both bisexual, and several secondary characters are gay. Kissen is an amputee, and her sisters are a deaf woman and a wheelchair user. Elo is coded as Black, while Lessa and Inara are coded as nonwhite.
An ultimately satisfying final chapter to Kaner's grimdark fantasy trilogy.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9780063350144
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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