A remarkable and densely atmospheric tale featuring two indelible monarchs.
In this third installment of a fantasy series, a king and queen search for a missing friend and face a threat of war.
King Louis and Queen Selen of Trevalden receive a cryptic message that Lissandro is in danger in the Windy Isles. They journey together to find their friend, which entails a stopover in the city of Kilcairn. Unfortunately, Kilcairn’s king, Dywel, is apparently still irate over Louis’ refusing to marry his daughter years ago and instead embracing Selen, a man, as his queen. As it turns out, the Kilcairn princes and princesses’ blatant ridicule of Selen isn’t the sole reason for a general sense of unease in the city. Selen learns that local women have inexplicably vanished. And though Lissandro is reputedly somewhere in the Isles, Louis and Folc of Tyntagiel, the captain of the king’s royal guard, look for their cohort in Kilcairn—just in case. When someone subsequently takes Selen captive, Louis aligns himself with a vampire to track down his queen. Meanwhile, Selen’s captors enlist him and Kilda, a fellow captive who’s a vampire, to locate and somehow close a portal for invoking demons. Traveling north to the portal in the Frozen Mountains could earn them their freedom, if Selen and Kilda can trust their abductors. Alas, an even greater menace looms: Someone may be planning to declare war. If and when Selen and Louis finally reunite, there’s a chance they’ll have to race back to Trevalden so they can defend their kingdom.
Carlsson shrouds this series entry in tension. For example, Selen and Louis are surrounded by untrustworthy people in Kilcairn, a precarious situation that the news of missing women only aggravates. Other scenes are ominous, such as Louis’ riding into a town in the Frozen Mountains: “Those shacks gave out the impression a curse had descended upon them. Many had broken roof tiles, loose shutters, and unkempt backyards….The echoing clops of his mount’s hooves filled him with a sensation of vulnerability. Before he reached the end of the street, all the town would know about a stranger’s arrival.” There are spurts of shocking violence throughout at the hands of assorted characters, including villains and the Trevalden king and queen. And while this book has its share of battles and confrontations, its steady pace owes more to Selen’s and Louis’ various objectives, from tracking down missing individuals to closing a portal. As in preceding novels, solid character development takes precedence over fantasy trademarks. There are only a few genre elements, like telepathy. The series protagonists are sublime, both as a romantic couple and as leaders. Their romance further makes the two sympathetic, and numerous scenes of Dywel’s royal family deriding Selen are no less difficult to stomach than the eventual brutality on display. Supporting characters are equally engrossing, particularly the vampires. While Louis’ undead companion can indulge in blood excessively (and sometimes does), it’s not a substance as readily available to Kilda, who’s a seemingly reluctant vampire.
A remarkable and densely atmospheric tale featuring two indelible monarchs. (map, author bio)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 441
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2020
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
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
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