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 engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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