Engaging and enchanting fantasy.
In Black’s fantasy novel, a family tries to save supernatural beings from an evil warlock.
In the late 18th century, August Alexander is an archaeologist on an expedition in the Amazon when he saves an elf named Elabella from quicksand. She tells August that he is a “guardian,” a descendant of “past protectors” of the forest and the fairy folk who reside there. In 2023, after finding August’s journal, archaeologist Maria goes with colleagues Marco and Chase to follow in August’s footsteps in the hopes of locating a lost civilization. While on her journey, Maria has her father Ross babysit her 10-year-old daughter Ashley. Ross is a treasure hunter and is quick to take the young Ashley under his wing while trekking through the nearby forest: “Over the years, he’d found relics, talismans, coins and jewelry, all gifts from the supernatural entities who lived in Goldfield Forest.” After digging up a marble lion figurine, Ross tells Ashley that their family can speak with animals and magical beings. He introduces her to some fairies, and they soon learn that the figurine is actually Lena, a lion who is trapped in the object by Bagrim, an evil warlock who is bent on destroying the Amazon as it is “the last sanctuary for many creatures, especially the large ones.” Black’s story is filled to the brim with supernatural elements, including goblins, trolls, fairies, dogmen, and tales of a 45-foot snake. There is intricate worldbuilding in the sections detailing the Amazon’s residents (as seen when the dragon Malacai explains how dragons once had an alliance with the lions). While the narrative is a little too fast-paced to give the vast number of magical elements sufficient breathing room, Black’s prose is accessible and descriptive: Bagrim’s goblin goon Wormley’s “pock-marked nose twitched and saliva flew from his slimy green teeth.” Overall, a charming and fantastical story.
Engaging and enchanting fantasy.Pub Date: July 4, 2024
ISBN: 9798322815488
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Doesn’t entirely hang together but still manages to hit the spot.
In an alternate early-20th-century Montreal, sparks fly between the operator of a cat shelter and a reclusive magician.
Agnes Aubert is not kindly disposed toward magicians, especially not after a magical duel blows a hole in the building that housed her and her cat shelter. Unfortunately, finding another spot isn’t easy, so she’s happy to take the reasonably priced location on the Rue des Hirondelles. But that’s before she discovers the building’s owner secretly living in the basement: Havelock Renard, the world’s most powerful magician, who also happens to be allergic to cats. As this decidedly odd couple work out a system for cohabitation, Agnes develops some uncomfortable feelings for Havelock; she also can’t deny her attraction to the police detective who thinks (not entirely incorrectly) that the shelter is a front for the illegal sale of magical Artefacts. In comparison to the carefully constructed universe of her Emily Wildeseries, Fawcett’s worldbuilding and plotting are a bit sloppy; the magical system is not laid out as clearly as more pedantic readers might wish, and there’s one part of Agnes’ quandary that gets resolved in a rushed, not truly believable, way. The book also implausibly suggests that an allergy to cats is curable by exposure (rather than managed by a magical antihistamine, perhaps?). But one has to admire the author’s acumen in finding the absolute sweet spot for a cozy fantasy, after all the other ones set in cafes and adorable little shops. It could seem either twee or a cynical grab at the market, but it’s neither; Fawcett clearly understands the complicated but rewarding relationship between humans and cats. It is also charming to set a story in Montreal, where both brioches and bagels are on offer.
Doesn’t entirely hang together but still manages to hit the spot.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2026
ISBN: 9780593973257
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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