A charismatic heroine propels this kinetic and imaginative fantasy sequel.
A smuggler of contraband fights to control her own magic while working for royal law enforcement in this second installment of a series.
Disinherited noble Inez Garza is a skilled smuggler in Canto, where magic is illegal. But after her involvement in an incident at the Academy of Natural Studies, Queen Hortensia orders her to perform community service with the King’s Men indefinitely. To placate Áliz the Jabberwocky, who runs the hidden market (the primo spot for the illegal magic trade), Inez agrees to search for an informant among the KM. Though she has the capacity to be a powerful mage, Inez sometimes can’t control her Powers. She struggles to keep her magic covert while handling KM duties, which include a raid on Birthright. The group is one Inez has helped fund and whose leader, Rowley, she’s befriended, as they all support Magical Return, the movement that wants magic to be legal again in Canto. But another KM assignment—identifying a sheep thief—ultimately leads Inez to someone’s nefarious plot to bring down the royal house. As such a threat against royalty will give the KM incentive to go after Birthright, Inez hopes to stop the sinister operation. In this latest volume of Cruz’s fantasy series, the author once again masterfully weaves together myriad subplots and characters. Inez, for one, is reluctant to acknowledge her love for Zavier Cole, heir to the Canto throne and a King’s Man who may be getting close to Lady Meiri, from whom the heroine needs a favor. These various elements, perhaps unsurprisingly, generate a brisk pace that rarely wavers. Despite her erratic Powers, the bright, astute protagonist is persistently levelheaded, as she’s regularly engaged with individuals she distrusts. As readers are no more aware of others’ motivations than Inez is, a solid, delightful mystery steers the plot to a villain’s inevitable unmasking.
A charismatic heroine propels this kinetic and imaginative fantasy sequel. (dedication, acknowledgements; author bio)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73254-714-8
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Bosky Flame Press
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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