A violent, sardonic superhero tale of transformative grief.
A misanthropic widower turns into a super-vampire in Renken’s horror/fantasy novel.
As the story opens, an unnamed, middle-aged narrator has just buried his wife who died after a long and painful bout with cancer. He’s sad and angry in his grief, and after giving the cold shoulder to other mourners at the funeral, he drunkenly stumbles to the home of his best (and only) friend, a wealthy shut-in named Bernie, who’s just purchased a very expensive vial of blood. The narrator, annoyed by his friend’s gullibility, takes the vial and impulsively drinks it down in one gulp. It’s only afterward that he learns from Bernie what a mistake he’s made: He’s just ingested vampire blood. The narrator laughs at this revelation until he transforms into a vampire himself: “There were muscles everywhere. And muscles making love to those muscles. Most surprising of all, there was a washboard stomach. What I think is called an eight-pack….Actually, that was only the second most surprising thing. The most surprising thing was…that there was no penis.” The man soon learns he’s become part of an ancient fraternity of immortal creatures pledged to rid the world of child killers. But is the troubled man up to the task? Despite the title, the book is not a graphic novel but a prose one, albeit one festooned with red-and-black ink drawings and occasional comic-book-style typefaces. The voice is self-aware and offers readers a hefty dose of Deadpool-style irreverence, and it will appeal to fans of that arch storytelling tone. At one point, for instance, the narrator takes a moment away from the opening scene—a rainy graveside service—to prepare readers for how often he’ll be saying the F-word over the course of his tale: “I’m gonna use that word a lot. Like about 432 times a lot. So you’ve been warned. But back to the scene already in progress.” The humor is sophomoric and profane, as well; a typical joke is that Bernie loves talking about performing fellatio. Its ideal audience will likely be those who love dark comic-horror tales.
A violent, sardonic superhero tale of transformative grief.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2022
ISBN: 9781940300658
Page Count: 162
Publisher: St. Petersburg Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2023
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
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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