A fun adventure in a fantastical land.
Oppressed supernatural creatures make a stand against tyranny in Micciola’s fantasy novel.
In a fantasy world where magical beings such as lycans, sprites, satyrs, and goblins were transported to a human realm to escape persecution, they only met more danger and prejudice in their new home. Nine years ago, Weylyn’s father was tortured and executed for the crime of being a lycan who stood up to the oppressive structures keeping all magical beings endangered and subjugated. Now, Weylyn leads the resistance movement, assisted by his closest friends, including Brina and Keagan (fellow lycans), Olwen (a sprite), and his human girlfriend, Rosalie. They ask Queen Sophia of Tudrose for aid, and she agrees to assist them—but only if they encourage rebellions and further resistance across the land. They leave Rosalie at home to lead the resistance there while Weylyn goes with Brina and Olwen goes with Keagen to foment resistance on multiple fronts. There is danger lying ahead greater than the expected enemy soldiers, gladiator tournaments, and dangerous mines: The Dove is a masked witch set on killing them, and the only hope against her may be Weylyn’s secret magical abilities (“You don’t know? Mystic Bloods are descendants of Druids. You all have the gift of magic wielding”).The author has created a complex and engaging world full of a range of characters, classes, lands, and languages. The different points of view that track Weylyn and his friends (and occasionally his enemies) keep the plot engaging and the stakes real. At times, the narrative can feel heavy with exposition, but this extra information aids in the reader’s immersion into the novel’s vivid reality. Weylyn’s heroic arc drives the plot forward and highlights the emotional core of the story. This is an enterprising fantasy that is ambitious in its scale and successful in its worldbuilding.
A fun adventure in a fantastical land.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2022
ISBN: 9781777270780
Page Count: 469
Publisher: Centaury Lilium Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
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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