An exemplary cast fuels this engaging mythical tale.
In Harris’ debut fantasy, witches band together to rescue their abducted children from the god who took them.
Centuries in the past, a witches’ camp comes under attack. Apis, the Bull God, looses his bull army upon the witches, trampling many of them and destroying their land. At the same time, a group of nomads runs off with the witches’ children stuffed in sacks. Did Apis act alone in his attack, or was he aligned with The Dark Emperor, one of the witches’ greatest enemies? In either case, going after the children will pit the surviving witches against a god and formidable dark magic, a confrontation they may very well not walk away from. Sometime later, Araja the Demon, one of the twin demi-gods (along with Araja the Just) among the witches’ community, tracks down one of the missing children, or so she believes. The child is Sara, who appears to be about 13 years old and hails from a modern city of “technologies and inventions,” courtesy of a new metal, bronze. The citizens attribute their good fortune to Moloch, a powerful being who’s provided them with these advanced “gifts.” The followers of Moloch viewed the kidnapping of the witches’ children as “the Great Rescue,” the heroic retrieval of “the children of Moloch.” When the twin demi-gods realize that Sara has untapped magic abilities, they surmise that this means more, if not all, of the kidnapped witch children may be somewhere in the city. The Empress of the Witches puts together a rescue party to bring their children home—although Moloch, who has ties to Apis, may be just as intimidating as the Bull God. The witches and the twins vow to save everyone, not just the young ones, held at the mercy of Moloch: “What if they could help these people escape Moloch, but keep the knowledge they’d gained? What if they could help these people resettle somewhere else and what if the Witches could help them with whatever they lose in leaving Moloch behind?”
Harris takes inspiration for this story from various mythologies and pieces of folklore. The titular Greek goddess Hekate, for example, is responsible for giving magic to the witches long ago (and the demi-god twins, are the spawn of divine parents Diana and Lucifer). This eclectic worldbuilding helps the author develop a dense backstory and solid narrative foundation. Nevertheless, the novel is not a typical epic—the characters and their personal histories drive the story; The Empress and the twins, for example, are at odds over who to blame for abducting the children, and their individual conclusions are based in large part on vendettas. Descriptions of the environment and even the cast’s appearances are sparse, but the personalities shine through (one witch girl “sat bored in a corner, kicking the dirt floor and casually nudging a hanging bronze shield to entertain herself with the flashes it made in the firelight”). Harris rounds out this tale with shocking deaths, betrayals, and a smashing denouement that leaves room for further adventures with these splendid characters.
An exemplary cast fuels this engaging mythical tale.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 979-8-9882575-0-9
Page Count: 482
Publisher: Sacred Consort Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 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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