A delight for both Austen lovers and fans of magical adventure stories.
A secret society exists within the mores and marriage plots of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter must be a witch.” Enter Lydia Bennet, the youngest of the Bennet sisters. Anyone who has read the source material will insist that Lydia is the fifth daughter and thus the maxim shouldn’t apply. But they are not factoring in the three eldest sisters who died shortly after birth. Nor are they aware that Kitty, the second-youngest sister, doesn’t count since she’s a cat Lydia hexed into girlhood without her family remembering. In setting down Lydia’s recollections, Taub breathes new life into classic characters in a novel that is carefully researched and surprisingly layered. Magic comes at a price here, and for every spell a witch casts she must offer up something in return. Lydia’s troubles start when, in order to spare her and Kitty’s lives, she foolishly makes a promise to Lord Wormenheart, a dragon demon. Years later, Wormenheart comes to collect what he is owed, which sends Lydia on a dangerous adventure to Brighton. There she seeks out the Jewel of Propriety with the help of fellow witches Mrs. Harriet Forster, a beautiful but existentially unsatisfied colonel’s wife, and Miss Maria Lambe, daughter of a freed Black woman and a South Seas plantation owner’s son. Lydia’s future husband, George Wickham, who in this telling is Wormenheart’s demon son, lends help and a good deal of mischief. Mostly detailing events from her past, Lydia also describes her current (though far less engaging) predicament, trying to help Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy’s hexed sister, Georgiana. While at times the story drags, Taub’s wit and creativity shines through, making even the Kitty/kitty character endearing where a lesser writer might have made it grating. As our heroine says: “though it is dauntingly long I daresay it is charmingly written.”
A delight for both Austen lovers and fans of magical adventure stories.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781538739204
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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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