An imaginative, well-crafted fantasy that’s weighed down by overused tropes.
An adventurous woman joins a crew of pirates and sets sail aboard the Wailing Wind in Kalous’ novel.
Sol Vesper was born for a life on the ocean. Her father was a sea captain and raised her on his ship after her mother died in childbirth. Her father was murdered in a mutiny when she was 12, and now, after a decade of “learning to survive without selling herself or being sold,” Sol arrives in the Aurtanian colonies of Barbaka, determined to get work as a sailor. Despite her experience and expertise, no one will hire her, as it’s considered bad luck to have a woman on a crew. A skirmish with a predatory captain leads to a chance encounter with Danken Vesper, her long-lost pirate uncle and the captain of the Wailing Wind. Sol joins his crew, eager to earn their respect; she forms friendships with Laius,a master swordsman who becomes her sparring partner; Will, the crew’s surgeon; and twin master gunners Derk and Jordan. She also earns the distinction of being the Wailing Wind's official thief after stealing a jeweled rapier from a Royal Navy ship. She faces challenges from misogynistic shipmates and enslavers at one of the ports that the crew visits. She also experiences a growing attraction to Curt, the ship’s surly first mate. When Capt. Vesper leads the crew in a mission to find and steal the mythical Hoard of Cerlax, Sol and Curt become closer, but Sol can’t risk a romance—there’s too much at stake. Kalous’ series starter showcases masterful worldbuilding, featuring mythology, royal politics, and richly detailed topography. However, some of its narrative elements are overly familiar; as a protagonist, Sol isn’t particularly compelling and falls into the not-like-other-girls cliché, even reflecting that “there had always been an oddness to her, things she couldn't explain away.” It doesn’t help that, until the final chapters, she’s the only significant female character; before that, unnamed innkeepers, barmaids, sex workers, high priestesses, and sex trafficking victims abound. Sun-and-moon symbolism throughout the novel is clever but heavy-handed.
An imaginative, well-crafted fantasy that’s weighed down by overused tropes.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781039198616
Page Count: 342
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
