While this tale proves complex, once the hero’s mission gets rolling, the intrigue never wavers.
A fantasy sequel focuses on a quest in an unforgiving wilderness.
In Sprague’s follow-up to Out of the Grey (2021), Amot Rixin is a Kith ranger on an important mission. His goal is to retrieve a sword known as a striker that he lost. It may sound like a simple enough assignment, but it will be far from easy. Amot is sent, along with other rangers and queensmen, to an unwelcome place called Whisperwood. Amot and company are transported by fierce women called valkyries. The valkyries command grand flying creatures known as gryphons that have been specially bred. Although the rangers, queensmen, and valkyries are ostensibly all working together, their interactions are not always harmonious. Of course, when the action moves to Whisperwood, there are plenty of other entities to deal with. The place is full of wolflike people known as Wulvers. There are also aggressive ghost pines, which, as one character explains, his grandfather always warned him to steer clear of. From the very beginning, things do not go as planned. One of the valkyries vanishes while flying. Not long after, Amot finds himself in the company of a female Wulver. What else could possibly go wrong? It takes some pages to explain the many players involved. The multifaceted narrative shifts, chapter by chapter, among a number of characters, including Amot, a queensman named Eriff Haulik, and even at one point the hero’s dog, Howler. The details involved can prove tedious. For instance, different aspects of the valkyries are explained, such as why a “wind rider” is not the same as a “knightmaiden” and how a woman named Galewind has been “tied up with liaison duties.” Such information is not particularly key to the major events to come. Yet those events do not disappoint. The dangers of Whisperwood prove peculiar, memorable, and even funny. Human-Wulver relations become prime opportunities for danger as well as comedy. At one point, a Wulver wants a lantern even though he doesn’t actually know what one is. In the end, this wild country is well stocked with enticing developments and not just genre clichés.
While this tale proves complex, once the hero’s mission gets rolling, the intrigue never wavers.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 350
Publisher: GaleWind Books
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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