An enthralling epic teeming with valor, camaraderie, and searing battles.
An ancient prophecy assembles a small team to save people from merciless invaders in Adler’s fantasy novel.
The isles of the Cynnahu archipelago are under the threat of the snake-like, “mireborn” Naga. These villains are after the Dragon Shrines, relics of the Dragonkin—the long-gone magical dragons who once ruled Cynnahu. The assaults by the Naga may be a sign of the Last War alluded to in a seer’s prophecy that also foretells of a “Team of Five” that will stand up to the Naga. One of these eventual Five is the recently orphaned 11-year-old Sakura, whose late father was a Shrine-defending Dragon Guardian. The others include seafarer and mage Myrriden the Traveler, who takes in Sakura as his ward; Myrriden’s magic-school student son Emrys; the Archmage Hoth; and the enigmatic Fire Mage Volcan. Crucial to their defense of Cynnahu is the unearthing of an enchantment called the Elder Song, though no one is quite certain what that spell does. Adler’s epic-length tale comprises two seamlessly connected novels. The worldbuilding is superb, starting with the Dragonkin and their former continent Cynnahu. The many isles, though they look the same, prove distinct in other ways; one contains Emrys’ school, with an exterior that’s magically different for each individual (to one it appears as a “mist-cloaked temple”), while another isle houses the formidable, gleaming Blue Fortress. The characters are just as memorable, especially the courageous, same-aged Sakura and Emrys, who put everything into their training and fighting. The standout among the supporting cast is Myrriden’s brother Aneirin, a historian-like Loremaster who helps track down the Elder Song. A handful of lengthy conflicts on land and sea reach a worthy climax and a gratifying payoff and epilogue. The author rounds out this story with a traitor or two, a series of magic spells, and at least one death that will hit readers hard.
An enthralling epic teeming with valor, camaraderie, and searing battles.Pub Date: June 1, 2025
ISBN: 9798396296732
Page Count: 752
Publisher: Winds' Home Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2024
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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