A fantasy tale bursting with excitement, fascinating characters, and emotional impact.
A deposed ruler undertakes a fateful journey to regain his stolen kingdom in Barrett’s fantasy novel, one in a series.
The realm of Imbria, divided into the three main factions of Veruca, Kymir, and Samirra, seems headed toward war as leaders jostle for power. Blaise, the Fire Keeper, burns things with his magical powers when angry, and in this book his frustration is high. He ruled Veruca, but it was stolen by his cousin Logaire when Blaise was away fighting against the blood-drinking Fomori. Adding to Blaise’s woes, his love Orabelle, the Water Keeper, perished in battle while still angry at him. Joining Blaise on his mission are Orabelle’s brother Thyrr and Guardian Damian. The group tries to enlist help and heal divides, but Blaise has many enemies: Khymir’s leader, Maialen (Orabelle’s sister), hates Blaise for personal reasons; Logaire, tasting power, doesn’t want give up Veruca; and Samirra’s half-Fomori ruler, Chaote, seeks revenge for his imprisonment in a cave. Blaise’s staunchest ally is Kaeleb, an orphan he rescued, but Kaeleb’s just a kid. On the journey Blaise encounters another child, Eolande—the most powerful person in the kingdom. Eolande is the “Solvrei,” the chosen one foretold through prophecy. Blaise tries to help Eolande control her magical ability. She wants no part of it, but others hope to harness her power for their own gain. Barrett tells a vivid story never lacking in surprises or plot twists. Creative imagery overflows—there are giant eagles transporting people, Sirens “singing out a tender lullaby” in the water, and an ancient dog god seeking Eolande’s help to die. There are also abundant compelling characters. Blaise starts out arrogant, impatiently incinerating people, but he grows by caring for Kaeleb and Eolande. The queens of the rival territories, though seeking war, have understandable motivations. Even the minor characters are intriguing, like the ambitious fake seer Sybylla. Perhaps because it’s the third book in a series, the beginning chapter overwhelms readers with a tangle of names and relationships. But the exciting flow of the narrative takes over, gaining more clarity as it hurtles forward.
A fantasy tale bursting with excitement, fascinating characters, and emotional impact.Pub Date: Dec. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9798988889151
Page Count: 339
Publisher: Anthem in Art
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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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