A rousing adventure that leads readers into a grim, magic-infused world they won’t want to leave.
A young man’s new life in a small town teems with hardships and magical misadventures in this first fantasy novel of a trilogy.
After Niles and Lyon’s sister, Vyla, dies by suicide after a broken engagement, Niles commits a shocking crime that puts the brothers on the run. They flee their homeland of Lakadia and head south, ultimately stopping in the small town of Singing Cove. But before they get there, Niles befriends Hob, a wolf who’s able to communicate with him telepathically. Both brothers settle in Singing Cove, where Niles quickly falls for Nomya, a reputed witch who has the power of second sight and sells much-desired talismans and sea-charms to fishermen. Things go wrong for Niles, however, when he angers the wrong person and begins using and selling a mind-altering substance. To earn some gold, he joins a group as a professional tracker and hunter, using skills he’s honed during hunts with Hob. Niles’ unpredictable journey puts him in the company of dangerous individuals, including human killers and dark elves. Where that journey leads him is to a place he never thought was possible to reach—and where he may find himself lost. Handforth subtly weaves in common fantasy elements, including spells and mythological beings, while developing his characters: Hob’s bond with Niles feels organic, and Niles readily accepts Nomya for who she is. There’s nothing lighthearted about this opening installment, though, and it delivers one of a handful of violent sequences within the first several pages. Niles is an easy hero to sympathize with, despite his flaws, including an occasional inability to hold his temper. The author’s prose is engaging throughout; a description of a whip, “made from the thick, tough hide of a huge grey monster,” is particularly terrifying: “This vicious thing tears strips of flesh from the bone with even the lightest of strokes.” A startling final-act turn leads to an ending that makes continuing the series a necessity.
A rousing adventure that leads readers into a grim, magic-infused world they won’t want to leave.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2018
ISBN: 9780993814761
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Psychopomp Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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