This exceedingly intricate fantasy will delight seasoned genre fans.
Mortals of various races engage in battle under the direction of deities in this fantasy series opener.
In the Five Kingdoms, near the Wasted Land, is the Stronghold. It’s the home of the Scorpion Men, who are humanoid from the chest up and arachnid below. The Immortal patron of the Scorpion Men, Blademon, has chosen Vardak as his apprentice. After much training and the gift of esoteric knowledge (via their mental bond), Blademon tasks Vardak with the mission of retrieving the Moon’s Eye relic. Vardak must accompany and protect Janna, the Fire Maiden Flariel’s human daughter, on this quest. Only the Moon’s Eye can counter the power of the Shalin Stone, already in the possession of a mad wizard who raises a Murkor army to threaten the Kingdoms. Further, the wizard Shan’tar plans to release the Nameless, a dread enemy of the Immortals, whom they imprisoned. To quicken his goal, Shan’tar summons the Soulless, magical thralls of the Nameless able to bend the Kingdoms to their will. Meanwhile, Tavesin Drondes, an apprentice mage in the Shining Tower, has found himself able to enter the Aetherium, a magical realm created by the Immortal Solsticia and used as a medium of transport by the Soulless. Can heroic forces act in time to save the Kingdoms? Calvin’s engaging epic tale opens with a dense and emotionally complex narrative. While laying the foundation for multiple novels, she offers crisp, nuanced characterizations, like that of Dranamir, the Soulless who brings Princess Tamarin Serales, murderer of her own parents, to heel. Nonhuman races, like the reptilian Drakkon, invigorate the plot, as do the enigmatic and beautiful Murkor, who never remove their hoods for strangers. Vardak, who speaks little and bristles at being a pawn of the Immortals, is a protagonist with great potential, especially as spurred on by the naïve Janna, whose ultimate decision regarding the Moon’s Eye shocks him. The author rewards patient action fans when the city of Jennavere falls with the aid of Scherok, a sea serpent. Many intriguing characters await the chance to grow in the next installments.
This exceedingly intricate fantasy will delight seasoned genre fans. (map)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73792-040-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2022
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
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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