A taut fantasy tale of bloodshed and politics with a complex hero battling her own personal demons.
In Barrett’s fantasy novel, a young ruler attempts to keep the four realms of the kingdom from falling apart but faces enemies, both known and unknown, at every turn.
This second installment of The Keepers of Imbria series finds magic-wielding royal Maialen, the Keeper of Earth, still reeling over the death of her rebel half sister, Orabelle, the Keeper of Water, ten years earlier. While Maialen can control the element of earth, even she is powerless to make crops grow in the parched and struggling land of Samirra, one of the four realms of Imbria. As Imbria’s four constituent kingdoms desperately cling to a tenuous peace, Blaise, the Keeper of Fire (whose obsession with Orabelle lives on even after her death), wants nothing but war. The appearance of Thyrr, Orabelle’s brother from the lands of the savage Fomori (or “blooddrinkers”), throws an already unstable situation into complete chaos as he attempts to claim the throne of Lehar, another Imbrian realm, as the legitimate heir to Orabelle. (While Thyrr doesn’t possess the Pearl that would grant him elemental powers, he does have the mythical Warding Stone, which strips powers from others.) Orabelle’s young son also comes out of hiding to stake a claim to the throne, forcing Maialen to find a path forward to save Imbria from itself. To do so, she’ll have to join forces with an unexpected ally and face a shocking betrayal from someone close to her. Barrett once again weaves together heart-pounding action and complex characters to create an epic tale that tackles themes of grief, forgiveness, and self-determination. Naturalistic dialogue and descriptive prose combine for a fantasy world that feels completely plausible, even with such outlandish creatures as the Sirens: “They approached me almost timidly and I stared at their awful, beautiful faces, so amorphous, like liquid barely holding its shape. One of them tilted its head and made a mournful sound, reaching out to touch my face. I slapped its hand away, my fingers slipping through the seawater body and making me shudder in revulsion.”
A taut fantasy tale of bloodshed and politics with a complex hero battling her own personal demons.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9798988889137
Page Count: 315
Publisher: Anthem in Art
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2024
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
A freewheeling, action-packed fantasy with a dash of romance.
Kova offers a fantasy novel set beyond the Nightgale Mountains in the walled fortress of Vinguard where citizens live in fear of the next deadly dragon attack.
Vinguard’s residents are always on guard against the threat of dragons, but they must watch more than just the skies. Living among them, hiding in plain sight, are the “dragon cursed”—people who, at any moment, may transform into terrifying winged beasts and destroy the city from within. For most of Isola Thaz’s life, she’s been told she’s the reincarnated savior of Vinguard. But just as she begins to suspect that she may be dragon cursed, she’s tossed into Vinguard’s Tribunal—a contest in which every 18-year-old competes in tests of skill and might to separate loyal citizens from the dragon cursed. As she’s sequestered for this rite of passage, Isola hesitantly allies herself with a handsome fellow competitor named Lucan. However, as the teens face such trials as fire-breathing automatons (“The silver beast comes to life with a swing. Its claws shear through the dim light”), starvation, and actual dragons while unarmed, Isola begins to feel that Vinguard’s traditions come at a cost that’s too steep. Meanwhile, Vicar Darius, Lucan’s father and the leader of Vinguard’s shadowy theocracy, the Creed, is desperate to take Isola’s powers for himself—and, to that end, he puts her into increasingly tortuous situations. However, neither he, nor Isola’s teenage rivals, are very compelling antagonists; instead, they come across as caricatures of cruelty. Still, the novel is fast-paced and action-oriented with a punchy prose that prioritizes movement over fantasy aesthetics. A sometimes-fraught romance between Isola and Lucan slowly blooms, but Isola’s relationship with her family forms the true emotional core of the narrative. Although the worldbuilding in fairly simple, the story sets up a massive mystery that promises big payoffs in a potential future installment.
A freewheeling, action-packed fantasy with a dash of romance.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781649377838
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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