A determined but unpolished exploration of love and fate.
Singh’s fantasy debut sees an assassin fall in love with the brother of her royal target.
Martia is an orphan living in Promapple, a village where highly trained dissidents live in open rebellion against Zarek, king of Absyleous. When Martia is 10, she evades the village guards and goes to see for herself whether Zarek is worthy of her hatred. Her enterprise impresses Promanthae, the enlightened despot whose iron will and instruction have made Promapple and its soldiers so redoubtable. He adopts Martia, and for the next 10 years, she trains constantly—both physically and mentally—to succeed him as village leader and ultimately to depose Zarek (or his heir, Coaleme). When Martia turns 20, however, she sneaks away from the village once more and encounters Coaleme’s brother, a peaceful, compassionate doctor whom she knows only as “Prince.” Martia and Prince fall instantly in love, but theirs is a star-crossed romance. Martia’s training has forged her into an unparalleled warrior. To keep Prince safe, she must not only abandon Promapple and fight against its people, but also take on the royal court of Absyleous. Martia’s dearest wish is to spirit Prince far away and live a quiet life together, but she has been trained as a killer and finds it difficult to express her love. Furthermore, men who should be loyal to her—her friend Minver, her top general, Lovshayie—may not be trustworthy. Will fate eventually spare Martia and Prince, or have factors beyond their control doomed them forever to tragedy?
Singh narrates Martia’s tale in the omniscient past tense, starting with a chapter of heavy exposition. This opening section calls to mind the dramatic prologues of Shakespearean drama, and there are thematic echoes of the bard in both the strength of Martia and Prince’s love and the unforgiving destiny that dogs them. Like stage players, Singh’s characters are fond of monologues, which, unfortunately, aren’t especially poetic. For instance, the tutor Arigue’s telling but stilted vision of Martia’s future: “But you, Martia, with the path you are on, you never had and never will have anything that you would want to treasure or protect, and if, fortunately, you might get something precious you want to save, then also, because of your destructive nature, I feel like this beautiful, tragic story will become your reality.” In addition, the prose isn’t particularly polished; fight scenes read like stage directions to be interpreted and embellished upon by the actors: “After getting the signal, which could only be seen by the assassins, all five started attacking her simultaneously.” Martia is a strong character, unparalleled as a warrior and fiercely determined to bend an unjust society to her will. Her empowerment is inspirational, and her failures moving. But while the despairing existential commentary will strike a chord with many readers, on a line-by-line basis, it remains difficult to ingest.
A determined but unpolished exploration of love and fate.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2023
ISBN: 979-8887498027
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Notion Press
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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