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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
