A bonkers fantasy that retains a sweetly human center.
In this fantasy adventure, a young woman explores her true potential while aiding a thief with otherworldly powers.
Madarena Rua, who is “young enough to be tried as a juvenile,” can’t sleep. Despite her father’s snoring, she hears flower pots breaking in the garden. From the doorway, she sees what must be a cat—yet it’s walking on hind legs. She chases it into the bushes only to discover that her quarry is a small, bald man. His name is Apophax, and he seems grateful for help getting out of the bushes. Madarena assumes she’s dreaming. When Apophax asks where a nearby cemetery is, she walks him there. He lends her his coat of hedgehog quills to keep her warm. Even more strangely, he then begins to fade away into the moonlight. As she tries to remove the coat, a creature that looks like a living statue of Anubis approaches. It says: “Apophax. You have broken the laws of Triskadeka Fair.” The dog-headed enforcer then takes her up a stairway of light to a court that’s bound to find her guilty. So begins Madarena’s entanglement with the trickster Apophax, who has a plan to steal the Aoede statuette from the Night Mayor of Triskadeka Fair. Once the Moirai Sisters Clothiers dresses Madarena in “Potential,” her real adventure kicks into gear. Burnett harbors a deep love for the absurd, using his imaginative skills to the hilt, as did L. Frank Baum in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Madarena’s ability to drive her own story begins when she’s in prison and draws a face in chalk on the floor. She then convinces the talking cell to release her. Such unexpected cleverness continues to gush like a geyser as the tale proceeds. The author’s appealing hero loves the dictionary and has a “deep fear of ennui,” which produces lots of wordplay. The Thanatons, for example—named after the Greek god of death—are a race of monsters that includes zombies and wights. Trying to find the person or thing that is named Aoede gives emotional stakes to a narrative that might have easily drowned in silliness. Madarena’s hatred of boredom could provide fuel for a sequel exploring the “quaquaverse.”
A bonkers fantasy that retains a sweetly human center.Pub Date: April 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7346642-2-5
Page Count: 226
Publisher: South Window Press
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.
The conclusion to the Villains trilogy asks, In a world where there are no heroes, what does victory really mean?
Schwab’s world is one where violent near-death experiences can engender ExtraOrdinaries, people who come back to life with a new superpowered ability, but lacking empathy, patience, and a variety of other, gentler qualities. In this installment, Victor Vale is becoming increasingly desperate; ever since Sydney Clarke used her power to bring him back from the dead, control over his own ability to cause and dampen pain has been slipping. Sydney herself is chafing against her life on the run with Victor’s protective ex-cellmate, Mitch Turner, and struggling with missing both Victor and her dead sister, Serena, whom she might not be able to resurrect—and definitely shouldn’t. Meanwhile, a psychiatrist, Dr. Gabriel Gray, discovers the existence of ExtraOrdinary people and seeks to harness their power for himself with tragic consequences for himself and many other people. Because the narrative skips around in time, it becomes clear fairly early that a final conflict is looming at EON, a high-tech facility where ExtraOrdinaries are imprisoned and experimented upon. This series has really lived up to its title; while antiheroes and villains have been popular protagonists for quite some time, not every writer is willing to lean into the darkness as hard as Schwab does. Some of her characters were psychopaths even before their near-death traumas, which means they didn’t have much moral fiber to begin with. And even the people who are basically good do a lot of bad and often foolish things when faced with a crisis…and there are a lot of crises. The strength of this series lies in Schwab’s ExtraOrdinary power to make you care for many of these incredibly rash, ethically dubious—some verging on irredeemable—characters anyway. As a result, the story rises above the usual grimdark cynical slog; instead, this is a gripping and nuanced saga with an ending that feels both inevitable and well earned.
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781250192233
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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