A creative and highly enjoyable fantasy read.
In Cooper’s series starter in the LitRPG (literary role-playing game) fantasy subgenre, a soldier dies on the battlefield but is renewed as a publican in the Underworld village of Ember Hollow.
While battling enemy knights from the Shadowthorne Empire, Sylas Runewulf of the Aurum Kingdom is felled by his opponent’s blade and dies in combat. He’s then transported to a gate where a message awaits him: “Welcome to the Underworld.” From there, Sylas—his body perfectly healed and clad in simple civilian clothing—is greeted with more messages, first instructing him to go to the village of Ember Hollow, and then informing him that he’s been given the deed to a local pub. Following the prompts, he meets Mira Ravenbane, the apothecary of Ember Hollow, who quickly assumes the role of a guide. With her help, Sylas learns how to access his new life-force magic called Mana Lumens (or “MLus”), gains new skills, including flight, and reopens the pub under a new name. As he adjusts to his new life, Sylas makes various other friends, including a fire spirit named Azor, his flying instructor, Archlumen Octavian Tilbud, and a fiercely protective and loyal cat he names Patches. The afterlife isn’t all fun and games, however: Every morning, Sylas gets a new prompt counting down the days until an unspecified invasion. Cooper’s novel takes readers on an action-packed journey through a cozy, yet appealingly unpredictable, realm; the combination of suspense, humor, and detailed imagery makes the book engaging. The characters are also well developed, and the story’s thorough worldbuilding is enjoyable, in part because it refreshingly pushes back on fantasy genre cliches, such as cultural sexism. Those who are unfamiliar with LitRPG works may find this novel to be a fun introduction to the subgenre, which features interspersed character stats and action prompts reminiscent of classic fantasy-themed RPGs.
A creative and highly enjoyable fantasy read.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781039448391
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Podium Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
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