This imposing introduction to a magic-laden world has epic potential.
A recently deceased teen searches for an ancient relic that can bring her back to life in Mavis’ fantasy.
Thalia Eichel awakens somewhere unfamiliar with only fleeting memories. She soon runs into Alistair, the God of Protection, who reluctantly tells her she’s dead. He doesn’t know how it happened, and Thalia doesn’t remember. With help from Alistair, Thalia returns home to Druin, a labor town in a medieval-like fantasy realm, only to discover that her parents and twin brother are likely dead as well. Signs point to her family’s probable murderer: King Vitalis of the royal city of Varedon. In fact, Thalia’s brother Demetrius is alive and looking for her—as far as he knows, she is just missing. A reunion between the two is possible if Thalia and Alistair can track down a legendary medallion that can allegedly restore life. All the while, an underground organization plots a rebellion against the royals, stirring up mortals, gods, and goddesses. The author masterfully handles an extensive cast, shifting narrative perspectives between Thalia, Alistair, Demetrius, and others. Individual character arcs shine, from Alistair’s father, the King of the Gods, objecting to his son “mingling with the mortals” to Thalia’s best friend Torin Lehr fighting in bouts for a mysterious company promising info on Thalia’s whereabouts. Much of this first installment in Mavis’ series follows Thalia hunting the titular jewel while hinting at a secret involving an Eichel ancestor that may explain why someone has apparently targeted her family. Mortals and immortals alike wind up imprisoned and in peril, offering plenty of opportunities for Thalia to prove she’s capable in physical confrontations. The author portrays richly drawn environments, including the gods’ home planet where a luxurious palace sits near a crashing waterfall, and an “ethereal” forest housing such magical creatures as pixies and a lilac-colored stag.
This imposing introduction to a magic-laden world has epic potential.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781999405960
Page Count: 390
Publisher: Sunflower & Snow Print Co.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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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