A compelling historical novel with a theological focus set in a rarely visited time period.
A group of Druids in 788 CE England search for a new safe haven in Linden’s historical novel.
This fourth book in the author’s series weaves together several threads established in the first three installments. The remaining Druids (a priestly class of Celts who held a deep reverence for nature) in Britain at this time faced persecution by the dominant Saxon Christian culture. A relatively large group of Druids once lived in secret at their shrine before their location was betrayed and they were forced to flee, some of them losing their lives in the process. After a long separation, the remaining Druids’ paths finally converge. Feywn, the high priestess, and Cyri, her niece and heir, are pretending to be Christians at an inn in Codswallow while they wait for others to join them. Caelym, a young Druid priest, struck out on his own on a rescue mission, but he finally reunites with the others at the inn. The group sets off for a new, semi-mythical shrine where they hope to rebuild their community. Meanwhile, Stefan, the sheriff of Codswallow, is returning to the shire with a plan to eradicate the bandits that have been plaguing the area. The sheriff discovers and captures Caelym (whom he considers to be a dangerous heathen) and survives a subsequent attempt on his life. The remainder of the book primarily deals with the Druids being forced to help Stefan foil both the bandits and his would-be assassins in order to save their own lives. The prose is lively and accessible; while characters use an archaic style of speech (“You’ve heard then! Word of my ruination has preceded me!”), the conversations still flow well. In the latter half of the narrative, a play-within-a-play plot device considerably slows down the pace and could have been significantly condensed. Interludes between the story’s sections provide both levity and engaging historical context. The characters are well-developed, and their disparate motivations provide a strong basis for the story’s development. Despite the relatively action-filled plot, the focus remains on the characters’ relationships and the spiritual clash between Druids and Saxon Christians.
A compelling historical novel with a theological focus set in a rarely visited time period.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781647429706
Page Count: 368
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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