A bold fantasy sequel that delivers on the first volume’s call to action.
In this second installment of a trilogy, a talented student closes in on the villain of his prophetic dream but at great cost.
At the New School, in the bustling capital of Vercors, 18-year-old Robert Endicott trains to be a knight and a dynamicist. The latter involves manipulating energy with his mind to alter probabilities and perform what looks, superficially, like wizardry. Robert’s been preoccupied as of late with a “heraldic dream” that revealed a tall, cloaked figure murdering his friend Eloise Kyre and his lover, Koria Valcourt. He’s committed to thwarting this tragedy while learning to harness his talents at the Vercors Ice Company, home to a secret, off-campus training lab for dynamicists. The lab is safe, but because Robert can’t resist a woman in need, he helps seamstress Freyla Loche repair her “stitching engines” that were sabotaged. He later investigates a potential conspiracy of those loyal to the demon Nimrheal, who’d like to blame all of life’s ills on a new type of grain called “triticale.” When the cloaked figure does strike, Robert and his classmate Gregory Justice are well prepared, thanks to some covert work in a forge. But lives are lost in a grisly manner that references Robert’s favorite book, The Lonely Wizard. Mortal danger is much closer to Robert’s friends than he can guess. Hunt allows his dynamicist to flex his probability-altering muscles in this daring fantasy sequel. The students’ use of heat to change the outcome of thrown dice is a thrilling portrayal of magic. Later, theory is traded for battlefield action as “a sheet of electrons staggered downwards in the tiniest sliver of a second,” hurling lightning on the beastly skolves. And yet human affairs remain central to the narrative. Robert hears the complaints of those whom progress threatens to leave behind and realizes that “the scope and pace of change is...not a joke, and it is not just because people are crazy.” This has deep relevance to life in the early 21st century, and reaching out to readers is a noble endeavor. The finale brings chaos that will shape the next installment.
A bold fantasy sequel that delivers on the first volume’s call to action.Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9990935-2-5
Page Count: 436
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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