An engagingly intimate chapter in this intricate, sprawling fantasy series.
In this fantasy novel by K.I.S., two brothers pursue their destinies.
The author’s Chronicles of Aitarbith series continues in this second installment, likewiseset on the eponymous fantasy continent with its many kingdoms and varied climates. This volume shifts focus from the healer Ata, the main character in the preceding entry, to center around a young apprentice magician named Briin and his older brother Hiirn, who are as close as twins even though Hiirn is the elder by three years; he often helps his sensitive brother overcome panic attacks (when they were little children, he’d “stuffed his tiny fist into Briin’s shrieking mouth and been savagely bitten bloody—all to no avail, for Briin had continued to shriek like a stuck pig and awoken the entire household”). As the novel opens, Briin is having increasingly vivid dreams in which he’s fighting his way through a dark wood, pursued by monstrous creatures called the Gruxhoon. The narrative splits between the adventures and perils of each brother, with Hiirn meeting his future wife Meira of the exotic Irie race (“he had known their marriage was inevitable and right, and so had set out to make it so”) and Briin studying to become a magician despite his unconventional approach to understanding his world’s magic. The author’s prose style is often turgid with fantasy-lit archaic language (“you ruffian” and the like) and filled with cliches, like “beg, borrow, or steal” or “discretion is the better part of valor.” But, like its predecessor, the novel is written with heartfelt energy that carries the narrative along. Briin is particularly well realized—his brother must warn him that the old master magicians “don’t respond well to being shown their own inadequacies by a mere novice.” The relationship between the brothers, often played out over correspondence, is touchingly rendered as the author further fleshes out this intriguing fantasy world.
An engagingly intimate chapter in this intricate, sprawling fantasy series.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2025
ISBN: 9780796173621
Page Count: 184
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2025
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
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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