Seriously, the dragons breathe glitter. What more could you want?
Two middle-aged law enforcement partners finally fall in love in this slow-burn fantasy romance.
Twyla Banneker hasn’t had a date in the 13 years since the death of her husband, Doug. That’s not to say she hasn’t been busy, though. In that time, Twyla has built an illustrious career as a Tanrian Marshal, the people’s guardian and the undead’s bane. Now, a year after another marshal purged the undead drudges from Tanria, she and her partner, Frank Ellis, find themselves reduced to monitoring children’s water-pony rides. Following a dragon attack and the curious case of the dragon hatchling that attaches itself to Frank, mother-duck style, a visiting professor and dracologist shows up—with a major interest in taking the self-professedly "frumpy" Twyla out. Only after she accepts his offer of a first date does she learn the truth: Everyone, from her friends to her own children, thinks she and Frank are an item. But the two of them are just friends...right? Cue the will-they-or-won’t-they shenanigans as the marshals investigate what brought the supposedly extinct dragons out of hibernation. Bannen delivers a quippy and fun fantasy rom-com here. Although some of the dialogue tags feel a bit ham-fisted, the conversations themselves are crisp and well thought out. Readers who picked up the series’ previous installment will almost certainly have an easier time acclimating to Twyla and Frank’s world, where the cars are amphibious inventions called “autoducks” and people distinguish between the Old Gods and the New. The first few chapters may read headily to newcomers, as Bannen pulls no punches when introducing these concepts in rapid succession, but readers who can go with the flow will soon uncover a delightful story worth every minute of their time. Fans of cozy fantasy will find a lot to love here, from glitter-breathing, poodle-esque dragons to a down-to-earth romance between two middle-aged heroes on the brink of retirement.
Seriously, the dragons breathe glitter. What more could you want?Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780316568258
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
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
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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