A singular and absorbing fantasy, familiar in its grand sweep yet unsettling in the details.
Protected by a hereditary ghost, a warrior must battle the demons of a cursed forest in this high fantasy sequel.
Five years after the Battle of Mauveguard Pass, Capt. Kilmer leads a party of soldiers into the Sanguine Forest in search of the king’s First Archer, Yori. Yori has been waylaid by the demonic seductress Langula, who subjects both him and Kilmer to her depravities. (Langula makes for an especially confrontational character.) Kilmer’s only hope lies in a ghost whose foreboding warnings he trusts. Will Kilmer and his men ever escape from Langula and rid their minds of the forest’s dark enchantments? Nine years before Mauveguard Pass, young Darius Plum experienced a vision of his village burning and his family dying. Darius had always suffered from bad dreams, visited upon him by a ghost he named Hollow Face. When this latest vision came true, Darius sought refuge in the local orphanage. He took the name Kilmer, after a disabled beggar from the village, and, when he came of age, joined the Amalgamate armies to fight against those who butchered his family. Will Darius/Kilmer find those responsible and take his revenge? Lyon writes from an omniscient viewpoint, focusing mainly on Kilmer but devoting time to many other stock characters, including the antagonists. Unlike the series opener, this sequel offers a plot and pacing that are more in keeping with traditional fantasy tales. But one notable difference is that, despite a framework built around portents and destiny, neither Kilmer nor the others are conscious of what they are questing for. The upshot is an edgy disparity between fate and free will. The author heightens this juxtaposition by moving the narrative about in time and revisiting certain events from the first book. The prose throughout is more functional than elevated. The dialogue lacks realism, at times sounding as if the characters are toy figurines being made to act out a child’s make-believe story. At one point, Yori’s spotter, Isse, reveals: “Oh, Yori, I can’t explain it, but I am so scared. I don’t know why.” Though potentially off-putting, such emotive phrasing is not entirely out of keeping with the tale’s epic narrative style. Fantasists will likely forgive any infelicities.
A singular and absorbing fantasy, familiar in its grand sweep yet unsettling in the details.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-956189-05-6
Page Count: 456
Publisher: Lyonic LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2021
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
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
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