A derivative but skillfully executed and engaging fantasy.
Three young heroes find themselves in a world descending into chaos in this high fantasy novella.
The Dark Days have returned. Ten-year-old Matthew is an orphaned prince in exile, looked after by his tutor and wizard, Eldarus, and his new pet dragon, Utredius. The boy’s ultimate goal is to take back his dead father’s kingdom from a conquering emperor, but rumored happenings suggest that other, more imminent trials may be in store. A white wolf with red eyes has been born, and a phoenix has appeared out of the desert. Even worse, the Vampire King who has slept since time immemorial has reawakened to unleash a plague on the land. “All hope depends on you, Matthew,” Eldarus tells him. “Not just to rule your people, but perhaps to also lead the battles that will eventually destroy the Vampire King.” It’s a lot for a 10-year-old to handle. Matthew gets separated from Eldarus when the Vampire King sends a minion to kill the boy and steal his dragon, but he soon finds himself in the company of a capable new friend, the Cloudwalker Sun Wukong, who has mastered the ability to fly. Matthew isn’t the only young person whose life has been thrown into turmoil by recent events. Eighteen-year-old Princess Cybele is the one who brought the phoenix into being by shooting fire from the palm of her hand. Twelve-year-old Tristan comes from a clan renowned for its archers, and he is destined to be Cybele’s steward and protector. The white wolf with red eyes happens to be his pet. Can these young protagonists and their animal companions rise to the occasion to keep the world from being overrun by darkness? Just how the prophecies will unfold is anyone’s guess.
In this series opener, Hammer’s prose evokes the romantic diction and mythological complexity of the high fantasy genre, sometimes to an eye-rolling extent: “If the prophecies are to be believed, the Snow Wolf will be born this night,” Tristan’s father tells him. “Frostgale’s mate was the king of all sabre-wolves, and so the prophecies state that he shall sire the Snow Wolf. You know the story, boy. Do I have to tell it again?” There isn’t much here that can be considered original thinking, and some of it even comes across as a tad bit lazy. The Vampire King’s name? Drahkuhl. The emperor’s? Caesar. That said, the author gets things started with an admirable economy. It’s a 93-page novella, and readers will meet most of the major players by Page 6. It’s unclear how many more installments Hammer has planned—one suspects it’s quite a few—but so far the pacing is brisk and the world, if not completely unique, is quite fun. Matthew and Eldarus travel on a ship with a crew of pirate ghosts. Drahkuhl stalks ancient ruins and subsists on the blood of sheep. This story may not prove to be a crossover hit like some of the books that inspired it, but readers who love the fantasy genre will find much here to enjoy.
A derivative but skillfully executed and engaging fantasy.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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