A spellbinding start to a promising new horror/fantasy series.
An American fortune seeker’s foray into London high society gets weird when a mysterious woman beckons him to Murder Alley in Wigham’s supernatural adventure novel.
Jeremiah Dalton is a penniless young man from North Carolina who’s trying to stay on the good side of boorish, wealthy patron Sir Thomas. The stodgy upper-crusters in Sir Thomas’ crowd enjoy having the pistol-toting American around, and Jem is happy to oblige their curiosity and accept their largesse, as long as it lasts. Marrying the innocent Cecily Watson could solidify his social standing, but Jem is conflicted about stringing her along with promises of love. He’s also troubled about being on the run and leaving his beloved sister Nellie back home in the States. These are just some of the existential questions rolling around Jem’s muddled head when he crosses paths one night with Felicity Archer, a compelling woman who’s determined to embark on an ill-advised venture into the darkest haunts of London’s underworld. The meeting represents a superbly rendered narrative shift that plucks Wigham’s hapless protagonist from his thoroughly conventional milieu of wealth and privilege and plunges him deep into a region of horror and magic. Someone, or something, is turning London’s dead into slobbering homicidal monsters, and Felicity and her tightknit band of friends, including the irrepressible Alistair McLaren, willful Odessa Morgan, and scholarly Rashid Selim, are determined to confront the evil. As he’s drawn deeper into the group’s supernatural intrigue, the author effectively reveals how Jem learns as much about himself as he does about the denizens of the fantastical world of Cradle. She also shows that, as dysfunctional and secretive as the group may be, they’re also a found family that comes to exert a powerful hold over Jem—one that’s more profound than any witch or warlock could hope to attain. High action and intricate plot twists are woven through the magical tapestry that Wigham conjures here, but the real sorcery comes from how she brings the characters and their relationships to vivid life.
A spellbinding start to a promising new horror/fantasy series.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781039483125
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Podium Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 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 book about revenge that’s more punishing than purposeful.
A woman from a matriarchal society kidnaps a prince from a neighboring kingdom, planning to force him into marriage.
Five hundred years ago, the wife of the abusive king of Amarra prayed to her goddess for mercy; in return, the goddess granted every woman in the country the ability to rule over men. Amarra’s queens have governed with vengeance ever since, creating a fiercely violent matriarchy. Now, 21-year-old Olerra Corasene, a gifted military strategist and powerful general, is competing with her cunning and devious cousin, Glenaerys, to be the next queen. Since Glen is trying to secure the throne by currying favor with the wealthy nobles, Olerra decides on a different tactic, the time-honored Amarran tradition of kidnapping a husband. Her target is a good-looking younger prince from the neighboring country of Brutus, but she accidentally and unknowingly nabs Sanos, the king’s eldest son and heir to the throne. She drags Sanos back to Amarra, where he’s treated with all the contempt for men that is normal in her society: He’s dressed as a sexual plaything, forced to shave his beard and body hair, leashed and restrained for bad behavior. Olerra can’t understand Sanos’ objections to this treatment, and the ensuing power struggle makes up most of the plot. Marketed as romantasy, Levenseller’s first adult novel falls flat as both romance and fantasy. There is little connection or chemistry between Olerra and Sanos, and since both are more caricature than character, neither experiences the kind of growth that creates challenging or interesting romantic relationships. In addition, the worldbuilding is paper thin. Amarra is a world built on reverse misogyny, but the motifs, imagery, and scenes often read more like a brainstormed list (a penis guillotine!) than a fully realized attempt to say something meaningful about women’s rage.
A book about revenge that’s more punishing than purposeful.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781250379375
Page Count: 368
Publisher: FEIWEL
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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