A stellar cast headlines this engrossing, otherworldly tale.
This epic fantasy traces generations of a magical family doggedly squaring off against witches, vampires, and other evil beings.
The Sosunovs are humans who settled in an “isolated, demon-haunted otherland” long ago. They’ve developed such skills as lucid and shared dreaming as well as spiritual combat. This novel, broken into chronological stories, mostly centers on one member of the Sosunov family: Valentina Grigorievna. When she’s a young girl, a heron-witch goes after her family in a fishing village named Fortitude. This heron-witch, striking in dreams, renders comatose all of Valentina’s 15 family members. The girl, along with the never-ending job of caring for the household and the incapacitated Sosunovs, must defeat the heron-witch before she devours her loved ones. As years pass, the eternally youthful Valentina runs into her share of villains, from vampires to the Headmaster (aka the lord of Death’s dominion) at neighboring Bleak Academy. Vampires, in particular, become a constant presence, flocking to the sunless otherland and establishing Night London. Some of the book’s tales spotlight other characters (though Valentina pops up in each one). There’s Mrs. Senko, a Bleak Academy teacher who’s bizarrely fascinated by a creature living in her gardens. Elsewhere, Evdeniya Kinjirovna Kaneko needs help when her scientist/engineer parents disappear after building the humming, greenish-glowing “thing that should not be.” Meanwhile, the Headmaster shows Valentina a dreadful vision of a “cursed land…hopeless, lifeless, cold, and grey”—a broken, terrifying world whose “substance” may seep into other places or into people’s souls. It’s hardly surprising that Valentina sets her sights on the wicked Headmaster and his powerful sorcery.
Moran’s meticulous worldbuilding gives this deliberately paced tale a distinctive style. Although specifics on characters’ surroundings are minimal, the abstract details sometimes come across as gleefully ominous. For example, the “geographically disconnected” otherland, aside from designated places like Fortitude and Bleak Academy, teems with areas collectively called “the Outside.” The Outside is nothingness and chaos, and it’s divided into even more unnerving parts—the low, the near, the far, and the deep. In addition, dialogue exchanges, rather than action, constitute much of the story, whether characters converse in a dream or casually discuss murdering one another. “I still think about killing you sometimes,” Valentina tells one player matter-of-factly. Still, the remarkable Sosunovs lead a sublime cast. Their time-defying abilities allow Valentina to dream-meet her whip-smart multi-great-granddaughter Aprosinya. This relative, who appears throughout the novel in and out of dreams, gets a visit from her mother when she’s pregnant with Aprosinya. Moran further enhances this story with memorable imagery. The heron-witch, in the waking world, crawls through a window more like a worm than a bird, and Valentina uses a magical knife to turn a skeleton into a flesh-and-blood comrade with not-quite-human eyes. In the same vein, Moyer and Bilibin’s pristine artworks open each chapter, showing such details as the Headmaster’s shockingly eerie star-scape eyes and a lovable, swimming seal. As the story progresses, the characters and plot evolve. Valentina starts her own family, and the Industrial Revolution, for better or worse, makes its way to the otherland. The open ending works wonderfully, whether or not the author has a series in mind.
A stellar cast headlines this engrossing, otherworldly tale.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 598
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
For readers of the once-popular dystopian YA novels who are now all grown up.
In a distant future, after the Last War when the human population became endangered, a new society formed from the ashes, strictly to optimize procreation.
But not procreation between just anyone. This society, ruled by the Illum—a mysterious authoritarian group—assigns mates to select for the best traits and to breed out defects, to grow the Elite population living in the clouds. Protagonist Emeline is a stubborn and bored young woman, working her days away on the ground as a Minor Defect—one of the class of women waiting to be approved for mating with an Elite, and hoping to never be banished further from society. Emeline’s instincts are apparently to reject the rigid decorum of her society, but she spends years trying to follow the rules set out for her, or at least dissociates enough not to challenge her way of life, until one day an elusive and charming man, Hal, walks into her office to talk about art. The same day, she is approved for mating and matched with Collin, the youngest member of the Illum, in the sort of pairing that hasn’t happened in decades. Courtship with Collin is full of luxury—fancy dinners and balls in the clouds—but also lies and days of discovering secrets kept from her, while trying to keep the Elite’s rumors and malicious Press at bay. Caught between these two men, with their own agendas, and so many unanswered questions, Emeline must decide what she wants, if she can want anything at all. With a rebellion rising in secret and the repression of the Illum close at hand, she’ll find what she’s willing to lose for the ability to choose for herself. The dystopian worldbuilding is underdeveloped at best, so get swept up in discovering truth from lies quickly before it starts to fall apart in your hands.
For readers of the once-popular dystopian YA novels who are now all grown up.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9798217090990
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 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.
