An inventive time-travel romance with an appealing mix of action and intrigue.
A surprise discovery leads a woman on a quest through time as she seeks a priceless brooch in Drennan’s romance novel.
As a child, Tessa Madigan loved spending time with her Uncle Theo in the home built by her grandfather on Balboa Island, California. When Theo died, Tessa inherited the home—and its secrets. While renovating the property with her boyfriend, Phillip Koenig, and best friend, Alexis “Lexi” Hill, she discovers a cache of valuables, including silverware and jewelry, hidden within the walls of the house. Tessa’s fascinated by the jewelry, particularly a serpent bangle that exerts an unusual power over her (“Tess snagged the bracelet, fascinated with its red rhinestone eyes”). As she researches the jewelry’s provenance, Tessa finds herself pulled back in time to 324 C.E., during the reign of Emperor Constantine, where she experiences life through the eyes of Kindra, a slave trained as a craftsperson by a man named Haldor. Tessa is not the only person interested in jewelry: A local shop owner and collector named Karl Johns and his sister-in-law, Valerie, also want the treasure and will stop at nothing to obtain it. When Tessa discovers that another piece—an exquisite cloisonné brooch—is missing, she again dons the bracelet to embark on a trip back through time to find the precious object before it’s lost forever. The narrative offers a satisfying blend of action and romance, with well-developed characters and an irresistible time-travel hook. Tessa Madigan is an amiable protagonist whose life becomes intertwined with that of Kindra, the craftsperson responsible for creating the cloisonné brooch at the heart of the story. The story moves seamlessly between Tessa’s life on Balboa Island in 2019 and Kindra’s life in 324 and her romance with Marcus, one of Emperor Constantine’s guards. Both the mystery of the jewelry’s provenance and the suspenseful search for the brooch are engaging and suspenseful.
An inventive time-travel romance with an appealing mix of action and intrigue.Pub Date: March 21, 2020
ISBN: 9781734258417
Page Count: 426
Publisher: KCPublications
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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