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
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.
Best friends confront feelings for each other when they take a honeymoon trip together.
Francesca Gardiner and George Saint James have always been best friends—just like Jo and Laurie from Little Women, which they both love. Frankie has a big, complicated family and George was the boy next door who’d moved in with his eccentric grandmother. Their friendship survived childhood, awkward teenage years, and living together as young adults without ever venturing into the romantic—well, except for one kiss, but they don’t talk about that. When Frankie gets engaged to an older professor named Nate, George isn’t happy and a huge fight ensues. Despite his misgivings, George shows up to be her best man, but Nate leaves Frankie right before the wedding with only a cryptic letter. Devastated, Frankie goes to a friend’s house to recuperate, but her honeymoon is already planned and paid for—so she decides to travel to Tofino, a picturesque town on the coast of Vancouver Island, with George taking Nate’s place. Frankie wants to fix her friendship with George, but now that they’re in a romantic suite in a beautiful location, things are more complicated than ever. She’d always thought a relationship would be a bad idea, but she’s slowly beginning to realize they’ll never be able to go back to being kids. Maybe the only way forward involves forging a new kind of relationship. Fortune, the author of romances like This Summer Will Be Different (2024), returns with another love story full of longing and intense angst. The many allusions to Little Women are charming, and Frankie is a delightfully headstrong, feisty character. She and George have explosive chemistry, and Fortune manages to make the “will-they-or-won’t-they” nature of their relationship feel like life-or-death stakes.
A powerfully strong romance for readers who like their love stories full of torment and passion.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780593953242
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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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