by Heather Walter ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 13, 2021
The unexpected cliffhanger at the end of this Sapphic "Sleeping Beauty" will leave readers impatient for a sequel.
An outcast and a spunky princess dream of revolutionizing their world even as one of them approaches her final, cursed days.
Long ago, the War of the Fae annihilated the Vila and their homeland, Malterre, but no one who survived the war—the humans of Briar and the light Fae of Etheria—seems to mind. Everyone knows that the Vila were nothing more than evil beasts, and that includes Alyce, the half-Vila forced to serve as Briar's Dark Grace. The light Fae blessed Briar's Graces with beauty and magical, golden blood, which they use to craft potions for paying customers throughout the land. As the Dark Grace, green-blooded Alyce bleeds life into mild curses that Briar's citizens use against one another. Alyce's hexes are nothing compared to the generational curse that one powerful Vila placed on the Briar Queen: to bear only girls, who must find their true loves before their 21st birthdays or die. The curse has already killed the current Briar Queen's two eldest daughters, locking the crown in a race against time to find a suitor for 20-year-old Princess Aurora. As Alyce soon discovers, after a chance meeting with the princess, Aurora doesn't want to marry a prince. Instead, she plans to break the curse, and who better to help her than the last Vila alive? Alyce and Aurora draw closer to one another, unable to articulate their budding romantic feelings, and that angst fuels much of the novel's drama. The anti-Vila racism Alyce endures grows darker and more deadly as the novel progresses, and her obliviousness to an obvious betrayal plot may frustrate readers expecting a heroine with a better eye for danger. Finally, a sudden series of terrible twists of fate—some unresolved, others resolved all too quickly—forces readers to contend with a shocking and abrupt cliffhanger ending.
The unexpected cliffhanger at the end of this Sapphic "Sleeping Beauty" will leave readers impatient for a sequel.Pub Date: April 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984818-65-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
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by Brandon Sanderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2023
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
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New York Times Bestseller
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
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by Brandon Sanderson & Janci Patterson ; illustrated by Charlie Bowater & Ben McSweeney
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SEEN & HEARD
by Samantha Shannon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2023
Prepare yourself for the long haul. This is expansive, emotionally complex, and bound to suck you in.
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Magic, dragons, and prophecy are welcome threads in a fantasy that extols the power of motherhood, friendship, and self-love to change the world.
This prequel to Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree (2019) has a similar scope to that 800-page fantasy, but dragon lore is less important here than the stories of people and events that become catalysts for The Priory's tale. Each chapter is grounded by a cardinal direction, lest you lose your bearings, with the four corners of the world home to central characters whom readers will get to know intimately. In the West lives Glorian, heir to the queendom of Inys. Her rule is based on the sacred Berethnet bloodline, whose power originates from the knight Galian Berethnet's banishing of the Nameless One, a giant fire-breathing wyrm birthed from the world’s core. In the East, Dumai lives on a mountain peak and trains as a godsinger, someone who harbors a human connection to the dragons the East worship as gods. In the South, Tunuva is a warrior of the Priory, a sisterhood that worships the Mother who is seen as the true banisher of the Nameless One. Their beliefs are so different and their societies so distanced that they don't know of the others' existence. And yet, when the balance of nature starts to waver, bringing whispers of new fire-breathing threats like the Nameless One, these women find themselves united by a common cause to save their people and seek truth about the higher powers at war with one another. This story is epic in scope, but its density is the sort that pulls you in. The biggest pull comes from the humanity displayed by the central characters, whose hearts ache for their children and their futures in a world fraught with turmoil. The fire-breathers bring more than destruction in their wake; they also bring a plaguelike sickness that will elicit sharp parallels to the Covid-19 pandemic. The very real struggles these characters face, whether they ride dragons or bear the suffocating rules of monarchy, make this a consuming read. While some fantasy tropes feel like they've only been added to the story's surface, the pages keep turning because of the heart-wrenching reasons that characters are driven to action. The heroes shine in their uniqueness, with diverse family dynamics interwoven throughout and representation ranging from queer lords and warriors to genderfluid alchemists. This prequel stands on its own, but a word of warning to people who have read The Priory: You'll want to reread it in order to benefit from the deeper knowledge of what came before.
Prepare yourself for the long haul. This is expansive, emotionally complex, and bound to suck you in.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-63557-792-1
Page Count: 880
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
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