A diverting mix of hard-boiled noir and rambunctious escapism.
An urban fantasy debut sees an ex-barmaid with magical connections team up with a private investigator to rescue a kidnapped friend.
Alex Whittaker is in her late 20s and until recently worked as a bartender at After Dark. The club caters to Seattle’s diverse clientele of Otherkin—supernatural creatures who were outed after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and who now have been accepted into human society. For the last three years, Alex has been searching for her missing sister. The only clue to her disappearance is a shard of red glass the likes of which 30-something Finnegan Black, a private detective and former police officer, once obsessed over when his fiancee was abducted. Finn now believes his fiancee is dead. He has turned to drink and lost his business. But when Alex takes over that business, she gives Finn new hope. While the two form a reluctant partnership, their investigation into the red glass is put on hold when one of Alex’s ex-colleagues from After Dark is taken and held hostage by a ruthless Daemon clan. In seeking to rescue him, Alex and Finn find themselves in possession of a dangerous magical artifact and caught between the Daemonkin and a powerful necromancer. In this series opener, Hazen writes in the third person from both Alex’s and Finn’s viewpoints, employing a straightforward narrative style and dialogue suitable to the genre. The story moves quickly, pulling readers through escalating loops of action, crisis, and discovery. The author avoids stand-alone exposition, instead allowing the worldbuilding to take place naturally within the plot progression. So, too, are the characters revealed through their behaviors. To an extent, both Alex and Finn are stock protagonists. Alex is a spirited blond who punches above her weight through dint of determination, resourcefulness, and sheer personality; Finn is a down-and-out type, all broody and prickly until his hidden depths are revealed. The two work well together and help inure readers to the assortment of supernatural creatures inhabiting Seattle. At times, the two sleuths could do with more breathing room—a narrative pause in which to appreciate the magnitude of their situation or the closeness of a close call—but this is a minor quibble. For the most part, Alex and Finn prove themselves well worth following.
A diverting mix of hard-boiled noir and rambunctious escapism.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-07-124324-4
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2021
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
Devoted series fans will appreciate the added pieces to this expansive narrative puzzle.
After 500 years, the Grief of Ages is a distant memory—until dragons hellbent on destruction begin to wake again.
In this relatively brief prequel to the epic The Priory of the Orange Tree (2019), the kingdoms of Virtudom have experienced centuries of relative peace. Marosa Vetalda, the Princess of Yscalin, spends her days behind castle walls under the gaze of her overprotective father, awaiting the date when she’ll be wed to Aubrecht of Mentendon, her ticket to freedom. While the book’s main focus is initially on the political threads weaving the Western kingdoms together, the frailty of best-laid plans is exposed when evidence of the reemergence of draconic beings reaches castle ears. These tales often come from the cullers who make their living slaying these creatures, and who are often blamed for intentionally waking them for profit. No one alive remembers the Grief of Ages, so no one’s prepared when Fýredel, the great High Western dragon, surfaces from the volcanic mountain that towers ominously over Yscalin’s capital city of Cárscaro. What follows is the backstory of how the devoted Yscali kingdom comes to shift allegiance to Fýredel and his master, the Nameless One, a main catalyst to events in The Priory. Overall, this book reads more like history lesson than fantasy adventure, but the sheer terror that befalls the Yscali people as they face Fýredel’s pure evil is both powerful and relevant. Marosa’s plight further solidifies her as a hero worth remembering; her strength and defiance shine through as hope for the future she’s dreamed of slowly flickers out.
Devoted series fans will appreciate the added pieces to this expansive narrative puzzle.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781639736010
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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