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
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.
The conclusion to the Villains trilogy asks, In a world where there are no heroes, what does victory really mean?
Schwab’s world is one where violent near-death experiences can engender ExtraOrdinaries, people who come back to life with a new superpowered ability, but lacking empathy, patience, and a variety of other, gentler qualities. In this installment, Victor Vale is becoming increasingly desperate; ever since Sydney Clarke used her power to bring him back from the dead, control over his own ability to cause and dampen pain has been slipping. Sydney herself is chafing against her life on the run with Victor’s protective ex-cellmate, Mitch Turner, and struggling with missing both Victor and her dead sister, Serena, whom she might not be able to resurrect—and definitely shouldn’t. Meanwhile, a psychiatrist, Dr. Gabriel Gray, discovers the existence of ExtraOrdinary people and seeks to harness their power for himself with tragic consequences for himself and many other people. Because the narrative skips around in time, it becomes clear fairly early that a final conflict is looming at EON, a high-tech facility where ExtraOrdinaries are imprisoned and experimented upon. This series has really lived up to its title; while antiheroes and villains have been popular protagonists for quite some time, not every writer is willing to lean into the darkness as hard as Schwab does. Some of her characters were psychopaths even before their near-death traumas, which means they didn’t have much moral fiber to begin with. And even the people who are basically good do a lot of bad and often foolish things when faced with a crisis…and there are a lot of crises. The strength of this series lies in Schwab’s ExtraOrdinary power to make you care for many of these incredibly rash, ethically dubious—some verging on irredeemable—characters anyway. As a result, the story rises above the usual grimdark cynical slog; instead, this is a gripping and nuanced saga with an ending that feels both inevitable and well earned.
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781250192233
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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