Colorful characters animate this magical tale with an environmental message.
A teenage girl, along with frog royalty, fights to restore order by reuniting the human and frog worlds in this debut fantasy and prospective-trilogy launch.
Nora Peters’ life in a tiny Pacific Northwest town has certainly not been easy. The almost-18-year-old recently lost her father in an apparent shooting accident that she thinks was murder. Now she has only her grandmother; Nora’s mom died when Nora was 10. The teen’s enameled frog pin, which once belonged to her mother, pushes her life in unexpected directions. Over in the frog world, Queen Ranya prepares for the annual Ceremony of Renewal. It’s meant to affirm cooperation between “the natural world” and the largetoe, or human, world. The ceremony, however, hasn’t been authentic in years. The ritual requires the Golden Pearl of the Forest, which someone has stolen. When word gets around that a femtoe—Nora—has the Pearl, frogs and others, including the Elementos (the elements’ spiritual essences), track her down. Some would just as soon kill Nora to recover the cherished object. But Prince “Azzie” Azzumundo has a much more peaceful solution: invite Nora to the ceremony as the largetoe representative. This throws the natural world into bedlam as nefarious types gunning for Nora, like a power-hungry frog lord, face off against the likes of Azzie’s valiant cousin Princess Linka, who, in protecting the Pearl, also protects Nora. Unfortunately, time is running out. The Pink Moon, another prerequisite for the ceremony, rises in mere days.
Brown’s epic opening installment pits Nora against many villains. Ever hostile largetoe Carl Kincade, for one, claims the girl’s father signed away the family’s property and tree farm—supposedly on the day he died. This only heightens Nora’s later troubles; she isn’t always sure who or what is coming after her. The cast comprises various frog species, like poison, zombie, and tree frogs. Although they occasionally do humanlike things (e.g., speak or brandish weapons), they’re still frogs. They’re much smaller than largetoes and hop from place to place. Irresistible hero Nora not only saves one of them, but, like her late father, she’s an environmentalist, which aligns her with the amphibians who believe her kind is hurting the planet. Nora’s friends form a diverse bunch, from Kameela Bashir, daughter of Somalian refugees, to Minh Phan, whose family hails from Vietnam. An Indigenous friend is described as belonging to a “local tribe,” but no additional information is given. Sadly, none of these teens appear often enough to develop individual personalities. Seth is the exception; he’s a complicated romantic interest, and Nora struggles to remember that he’s not like his abhorrent father, Carl. The storyline features welcome mysteries and subplots regarding, for example, the deaths of Nora’s parents and Queen Ranya’s ascendance to the throne. Brown writes well, portraying an area of clear-cutting as “a field of battle” with “arm-like limbs, slain body-like trunks, stumps, tangled roots.” She’s also a skilled artist, adorning some pages with sublime abstract collages. Readers hoping for answers won’t be disappointed, though there’s a hint of where the planned sequel is headed.
Colorful characters animate this magical tale with an environmental message.Pub Date: March 20, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985691207
Page Count: 550
Publisher: Sequoia Grove Books
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2022
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
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
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