A comforting tale that grows oversaturated with sweetness.
Two former students of a magic academy find work and make new friends in Rossi’s fantasy novel.
Upon graduating from school, it can be difficult for young people to find their place in the world, but youthful and entrepreneurial lovers Kika and Balerya achieve success straight away. The skills they learned at Avara Academy, a magical institute, are useful: Balerya can fly, harness the wind, and coax flames from her fingertips; nature-loving Kika studied terrakinesis and can produce water on demand. Their first money-making venture is selling the fruits and vegetables Kika magically grows. Balerya advertises by flying above rooftops and letting the wind sweep her informational words (“Fresh produce for three coppers a piece”) beneath all the doorways. Soon they begin receiving orders from the residents of their village, Serilda. Kika and Balerya’s next enterprise is baking fruit pies, which also proves successful. Then, while napping on a cloud, Balerya gets inspired to bring down bits of clouds to weave into hammocks, bedding, and soft and fluffy clothing. Running their various businesses, the couple gets acquainted with their neighbors, a blend of all types of creatures including gnomes, centaurs, elves, goblins, animals, and humans. Rossi’s world is “quiet, slow, peaceful,” an idyllic place where all exist in harmony and equality. Same-sex couples like Kika and Balerya are presented as unremarkable; endearments abound, with characters referring to each other as dear, darling, love, sproutling, and cloudling. All problems seem small and solvable—villagers trapped inside by snow, prevented from going to a village-wide festival, happily have their own party. Even Mrs. Morley, a grumpy landlady, is revealed to have a softer side, crying at her son’s wedding and showing generosity towards Kika and Balerya. Though the book initially makes for a pleasant escape from real-world strife, readers may eventually feel mildly stifled by the fluffiness tightly encasing them like a cloud-sweater, longing for Kika and Balerya to just once engage in even the smallest of spats.
A comforting tale that grows oversaturated with sweetness.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798340764478
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A freewheeling, action-packed fantasy with a dash of romance.
Kova offers a fantasy novel set beyond the Nightgale Mountains in the walled fortress of Vinguard where citizens live in fear of the next deadly dragon attack.
Vinguard’s residents are always on guard against the threat of dragons, but they must watch more than just the skies. Living among them, hiding in plain sight, are the “dragon cursed”—people who, at any moment, may transform into terrifying winged beasts and destroy the city from within. For most of Isola Thaz’s life, she’s been told she’s the reincarnated savior of Vinguard. But just as she begins to suspect that she may be dragon cursed, she’s tossed into Vinguard’s Tribunal—a contest in which every 18-year-old competes in tests of skill and might to separate loyal citizens from the dragon cursed. As she’s sequestered for this rite of passage, Isola hesitantly allies herself with a handsome fellow competitor named Lucan. However, as the teens face such trials as fire-breathing automatons (“The silver beast comes to life with a swing. Its claws shear through the dim light”), starvation, and actual dragons while unarmed, Isola begins to feel that Vinguard’s traditions come at a cost that’s too steep. Meanwhile, Vicar Darius, Lucan’s father and the leader of Vinguard’s shadowy theocracy, the Creed, is desperate to take Isola’s powers for himself—and, to that end, he puts her into increasingly tortuous situations. However, neither he, nor Isola’s teenage rivals, are very compelling antagonists; instead, they come across as caricatures of cruelty. Still, the novel is fast-paced and action-oriented with a punchy prose that prioritizes movement over fantasy aesthetics. A sometimes-fraught romance between Isola and Lucan slowly blooms, but Isola’s relationship with her family forms the true emotional core of the narrative. Although the worldbuilding in fairly simple, the story sets up a massive mystery that promises big payoffs in a potential future installment.
A freewheeling, action-packed fantasy with a dash of romance.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781649377838
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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