An imaginative epic of magic and mayhem.
Psychic brothers battle pallid ghouls, bug swarms, and their own dark secrets in Carlton’s intense fantasy novel.
This third book in the Heroes of the Line series finds 14-year-old Nick Emerson and his 9-year-old brother, Frank, continuing the battle against the pale, milky-eyed, whispery-voiced, shadow-dwelling schades and their allies, the vestiges, which are monstrous black clouds that rust cars and scratch people to death. The brothers and their schade-hunting posse venture from their suburban home into the realm of the Sidhe, which is inhabited by magical folks from Irish mythology who are cousins of the schades—only nicer, better-looking, and handy with daggers and bows. There, Nick and Frank learn about their ancestor Oemir, a legendary hero. Druid priest Cathbad infuses Nick with a potion that lets him shape-shift into Oemir and his other progenitors; the Sidhe princess Ilirya, who was Oemir’s wife, falls in love with him. Aided by their paranormal powers—Frank is telepathic; Nick can stop the flow of time and open portals between worlds—the boys weather many perils, including a swarm of gnat-sized baby vestiges and a giant blackbird that flaps off with Frank in its talons. Things get even hairier when they return home, where the schades, led by The One, have begun killing schade-hunters and dressing up in their skins. More insidiously, The One tries to telepathically instill in the boys a paralyzing sense of guilt and mutual distrust over a long-past child molestation trauma. Carlton deftly limns a sword-and-sorcery dimension teeming with vivid figures—“Her bare feet slapped hard and wet, spitting droplets onto the stony floor as she raced across the room, her seaweed plaits spraying salt water down her glistening scaled body,” he writes of sea-dwelling Sidhe queen—while retaining a feel for the human realm’s gritty realism. The prose is punchy and evocative, especially in Nick’s many gory rumbles with schades: “The being moved like cold molasses, giving the teen time to clear his head, flip his blade out and sweep its glorious sharpness through its wrist, freeing himself from its grip.” The result is an enchanting page-turner.
An imaginative epic of magic and mayhem.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2012
ISBN: 9781477559437
Page Count: 296
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
