A bit goofy, overall, but sure to appeal to fellow lawyers.
When residents of Fairy Tale Land want to sue their fellow fictional characters, they turn to Olly Owl, attorney at law, in Braband’s collection of humorous short stories.
The feathered lawyer takes on six civil cases in all. First, the Seven Dwarfs, after developing health problems, sue their mining company employer. The Big Bad Wolf’s widow initially charges the Three Little Pigs with the wrongful death of her husband before realizing that she actually should take it up with the Forest Builders Union. Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus get into a contract dispute when climate change causes Frosty to melt sooner than expected, and the Three Bears ask for reparations from the damage that Goldilocks did to their home. Humpty Dumpty’s heirs want justice from the Town of Fairy Tale Land, citing negligence on the upkeep of the wall from which he fell. The stories are brief, with one overlong exception, in which Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf sue and countersue each other; it also features a somewhat odd plot twist. In a note at the end, Braband says she drew on “several decades working in various legal offices” for these tales, including one that would host mock trials of fictional characters for children of lawyers and staff. The tales are cute and comical throughout, and several feature jokes that are likely to appeal most to a grown-up audience—as when Olly needs Rogaine to regrow some feathers, or when he asks the Seven Dwarfs whether they have a mortgage on their cottage; generally, readers who work in the legal profession will be most amused. However, some tales rely a little too heavily on silly animal noises for effect, and although humor is certainly subjective, these moments seem aimed at a younger audience; for example extra esses appear in snake characters’ dialogue, and Olly sometimes offers hooty replies, such as “I dooo, dooo, your honor”; one single page has the widowed Wolf saying “Grrr...... grrr.....” no fewer than six times.
A bit goofy, overall, but sure to appeal to fellow lawyers.Pub Date: April 25, 2025
ISBN: 9798890918987
Page Count: 84
Publisher: ReadersMagnet LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2025
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
