Chatty, lively worldbuilding in a rollicking fantasy.
A fantasy explores the magic of midlife fresh starts.
When Jessie Evans’ husband tells her that he wants a divorce, she’s thrilled (to his surprise). With her son starting college, Jessie is tired of being a housewife and ready to start a new chapter. But when Jessie winds up back at her childhood home north of Los Angeles, she realizes that staying with her parents while she gets back on her feet is not a viable option. Jessie’s childhood friend Diana suggests that she become the caretaker of Ivy House, a family property that the two of them visited on a childhood vacation. Jessie jumps at the chance. While Diana was scared of the “dark and foreboding” mansion, Jessie hadn’t wanted to leave its secret passageways, trap doors, and air of mystery. Soon, Jessie is in the small mountain town of O’Briens, where wineries’ tasting rooms dot “the itty-bitty downtown strip like chicken pox.” She settles into Ivy House with the help of its longtime butler and gardener as well as Niamh, the talkative Irish neighbor, who dishes about everything from the area’s tourist trade to Austin Steele, the town’s hunky bartender and unofficial mayor. When Jessie goes wine tasting with Austin, she learns that the locals of O’Briens are all living magical double lives and that powerful forces are vested in preventing her from understanding her new home. Will Jessie and her new friends be able to preserve the peace in O’Briens and allow her to truly master the powers of Ivy House? Readers looking for a less-scholarly companion to Deborah Harkness’ novel A Discovery of Witches will enjoy Jessie’s magical reawakening. Her slow exploration of Ivy House’s secrets is absorbing and entertaining. Indeed, Breene’s story would have been more captivating with additional scenes focused on Jessie learning about the house and its powers and fewer long, expository conversations with supporting characters. But the ultimate clash between Jessie’s motley group of friends and the forces of evil is exciting and hilarious, and if there are a few too many references to Jessie’s post-childbirth bladder, her witty comebacks more than compensate. There are also hints of a sequel to come.
Chatty, lively worldbuilding in a rollicking fantasy.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 979-8602961201
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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