A twisty thriller with superb worldbuilding and biting social commentary.
A young woman reluctantly takes a job working for a powerful vampire in Linde’s supernatural novel.
In a world where vampires rule and humans are barely able to make ends meet, Reyna Carpenter is desperate to find a job to ease the burden on her overworked brothers. She decides to apply at Visage, a vampire-run company specializing in “body employment services.” The company assigns humans (called “blood escorts”) to vampires with matching blood types, as “vampires who drank blood that matched the blood type they had when they were human functioned at higher cognitive levels.” Reyna is promptly assigned to Visage’s senior vice president, Beckham Anderson. Fighting their instant attraction to each other, Beckham quickly introduces her to the elite world of wealthy vampires. As he continually refuses to drink from her and rogue vampire attacks increase in frequency, Reyna senses there is something very wrong in Beckham’s world…and with Visage itself. As she delves into the dark underbelly of vampirism, Reyna discovers that there is something different about her that may threaten the fragile, decade-long peace between humans and vampires. In a somewhat saturated market of vampire fiction, the author manages to artfully dodge expectations while still occasionally indulging in the tropes of the genre. In particular, the economic disparity between humans and vampires is thoughtfully explored and adds relevance to an otherwise frothy thriller. When Reyna questions the vampire daughter of a local politician, for example, her frustrations sound eerily familiar: “Have you actually seen the streets?…Seen the people starving and dirty and poor? Seen the streets littered with filth and felt the utter despair?” The plot twists are genuinely surprising, and the story concludes with a deliciously foreboding cliffhanger. With realistic dialogue and a snappy pace, Linde has crafted a smart supernatural romance that isn’t afraid to tackle themes like abuse, greed, and social injustice.
A twisty thriller with superb worldbuilding and biting social commentary.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
At turns spooky and funny, with bits of inside baseball and a swimming pool’s worth of blood.
Hill, son of the master, turns in a near-perfect homage to Stephen King.
Arthur Oakes has problems. One is that his mom, a social justice warrior, has landed in the slammer for unintentional manslaughter. And he’s one of just three Black kids at an expensive college (in Maine, of course), an easy target. A local townie drug dealer extorts him into stealing rare books from the school’s library, including one bound in human skin. The unwilling donor of said skin turns up, and so do various sinister people, one reminiscent of Tolkien’s Gollum, another a hick who lives—well, sort of—to kill. Then there’s Colin Wren, whose grandfather collects things occult. As will happen, an excursion into that arcana conjures up the title character, a very evil dragon, who strikes an agreement with fine print requiring Arthur and his circle to provide him with a sacrifice every Easter. “It’s a bad idea to make a deal with them,” says Arthur, belatedly. “Language is one of their weapons…as much as the fire they breathe or the tail that can knock down a house.” King Sorrow roasts his first victims, and the years roll by, with Arthur becoming a medieval scholar (fittingly enough, with a critical scene set at King Arthur’s fortress at Tintagel), Colin a tech billionaire with Muskian undertones (“King Sorrow was a dragon, but Colin was some sort of dark sorcerer”), and others of their circle suffering from either messing with dragons or living in an America of despair. There’s never a dull moment, and though Hill’s yarn is very long, it’s full of twists and turns and, beg pardon, Easter eggs pointing to Kingly takes on politics, literature, and internet trolls (a meta MAGA remark comes from an online review of Arthur’s book on dragons: “i was up for a good book about finding magical sords and stabbing dragons and rescuing hot babes in chainmail panties but instead i got a lot of WOKE nonsense.…and UGH it just goes on and on, couldve been hundreds of pages shorter”).
At turns spooky and funny, with bits of inside baseball and a swimming pool’s worth of blood.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9780062200600
Page Count: 896
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
If you like your romance the darker the better, this one is for you.
A young mother returns to the gothic manor of her childhood to dust off the family secrets and face her old flame.
Maven Blackthorn hasn’t been home since her mom died under suspicious circumstances 12 years ago, but the death of her grandmother, Lorinda, forces her return to Solstice, Vermont. Maven’s daughter, Beatrix, has never seen where her mother grew up, but she quickly learns the Blackthorns have a reputation for witchcraft, largely fueled by a centuries-long feud with the powerful Croft family, whose heir apparent, Ronan, was Maven’s forbidden teenage love and “worst nightmare.” Maven hopes to bid farewell to her grandmother and visit with her aunts without running into Ronan, but he proves hard to avoid. Maven’s hatred for Ronan runs deep and she believes the feeling is mutual. From Ronan’s perspective, it’s clear their painful unraveling was full of misunderstandings. When Lorinda’s body goes missing from the funeral home, Maven is forced to accept Ronan’s help in discovering what happened. While Maven dives into her family history and the many unfortunate events befalling Blackthorn women, Ronan is forever in her ear, seducing her back to him. The push and pull of their romance feels immature, which isn’t helped by the first-person present narration. At times, it’s easy to forget Maven and Ronan aren’t still teenagers, until the erotica is punched up a thousand percent in the final third. Controlling lines from Ronan like “Don’t test my patience, woman” might read better if his perspective were explored more, though fans of Geissinger’s dark erotica, including Brutal Vows (2025), may not be fazed. Maven’s perspective dominates, and though her investigation into family lore and increasing paranoia are the most compelling arc, the million and one ways in which she threatens Ronan with physical violence—“What I really want to do is tie you to a tree, disembowel you with my bare hands, feed your guts to the wolves, and cut off your head”—is a bit one-note. Trigger warnings abound.
If you like your romance the darker the better, this one is for you.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781250379139
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Bramble Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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