Vibrant characters populate this rewarding, otherworldly tale.
Citizens hoping to peacefully reunite countries in their ravaged world face sinister forces in this fantasy series opener.
Centuries ago, a plague called the Blight devastated the world of Messano. Arts and particular skills were lost, and trade between nations broke down entirely. But Tavi and Arran, the brothers of King Nical of Estneva, have big plans. Tavi has learned the lost craft of forging iron while Arran helps a builder complete a giant boat so that trade across Messano can open again. Meanwhile, some citizens, believing Nical will wage war against the country of Bregasso, aim for a royal alliance—a marriage between the king and Bregasso’s princess. Unfortunately, Silvana, who owns the Orphanage filled with children she eventually sells as slaves, would just as soon grab the Bregasso throne for herself. Now the iron that Tavi forges can be turned into weapons for a war that seems imminent. Playing a significant role in this epic tale is Devian, a Vacillian, whose gender changes indiscriminately. He had to flee his hometown, where the villagers stone all known Vacillians to death. As Devian travels to Messano, he gets entangled in its unrest and its motley inhabitants. Burgo’s story teems with effervescent characters. Arran, after smoking a leafy plant, discovers he can fly and becomes the Domus, whom others hold in reverence. This unmistakably adult fantasy is often as grim as the title suggests. For example, some atrocities are committed against children, and, in a striking supernatural turn, a dead man enters and takes control of a woman’s body and mind. The author employs simple but expressive language. Here, Burgo describes a man named Sandro, a stranger Devian meets on the road: “In the early morning hours after awakening, lying alone in his tent, the taste of this life was bitter upon his lips. What might he do that he had not already done before? What new flavors awaited him?” The author ends the novel on a relatively minor cliffhanger—but it’s vivid enough to leave readers eagerly anticipating the sequel.
Vibrant characters populate this rewarding, otherworldly tale. (map)Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9975920-5-4
Page Count: 515
Publisher: New Rise Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
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
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
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