Imaginatively quirky, with stomach-churning brutality, sharp wit, and a powerful hero.
In Shipton’s fantasy novel, four escapees from a dystopian city team up to stay ahead of the cadre of bounty hunters sent to capture them.
Gladiator Eleanor “Ellie” Skinner triumphs in one more battle to the death in the arena. The reigning powers (called the Thral) of Draconia demand she fight in one grizzly battle a year; her other option is becoming a mother, and Ellie has no interest in raising a child. In Draconia, the men rule—they possess undefined magic powers that are stripped away from baby girls as soon as they’re born. Now, at 35, with a wooden arm to replace the one she lost in battle sometime during her 17 years in the arena, Ellie is the oldest undefeated gladiator in Draconia. Her best friend, Rosalind “Roz” Butcher, is, unwillingly, the second-oldest gladiator (unable to have a baby, Roz was forced into the arena). Ellie is horrified to realize she herself has become pregnant after one night’s indiscretion. Roz has heard rumors of an old woman who lives by the ocean beyond Draconia who still has her magic; perhaps she can help Ellie get rid of the baby. But first, she and Roz must escape from the city. They trek through the grimy sewers of Draconia, where the women pick up a teenager named Sam who has his own reasons for wanting to escape. The narrative combines raw, graphic violence with edgy humor and unexpected poignancy. Composed in contemporary lingo loaded with expletives, the story also throws around occasional antiquated terminology just for fun—Ellie refers to the fetus she’s carrying as the “homunculus.” It won’t take readers long to begin to connect the not-so-subtle similarities between Draconia’s undergirding philosophy with the political and social rhetoric of today. This is not a novel for the squeamish, but readers comfortable with the blood, gore, and rough language have plenty of satisfying adventure in store for them.
Imaginatively quirky, with stomach-churning brutality, sharp wit, and a powerful hero.Pub Date: July 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798295553233
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Tyrannosaurus Yes Media
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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