The past is the gift that keeps on haunting in this gripping paranormal fantasy.
A quartet of young, powerless witches rely on their wits when their small towns are attacked by a renewed threat in Bobe’s contemporary fantasy novella.
When 31-year-old spellcaster Endicott Thyne notices the moon’s unusual appearance, she identifies as a herald of the Season of the Witch, which happens every 30 years. Endicott and her witchy crew (including her best friend, Gabriela, along with new acquaintances Xandra and Maritza) soon find out what that really means when a being that emerges from a spooky veil suppresses their powers. To restore those powers, and research this implied threat to their stomping grounds, the twin towns of Mire and Ember Hollow, Endicott must locate the hidden archive of her late grandmother, Dorothea Thyne, the longtime Mire librarian. At the library, she unearths the diary of Claudia Barry, who was seduced by a man from Ember Hollow and was later corrupted by the energy of the otherworldly veil during the Season of the Witch 60 years earlier. Claudia escaped into the world behind the veil and hadn’t been seen since. But now she has returned with a vengeance, wreaking havoc on the twin towns. Endicott proposes a strategy of power in numbers, seeking every available witch, circumventing the communications barrier caused by the veil using their animal familiars. Still, this army still requires a re-powered Endicott and friends to end Claudia’s menace. Bobe deserves much credit for creating a magical land which still feels modern, including cars and cell phones. She effectively introduces all of the key players in her tale using flashbacks to Claudia and her earlier visit. The author illustrates that Claudia is also a victim of a sort, which doesn’t in any way forgive her latter atrocities. This is the story of Endicott’s evolution (she’s been adrift since her guardian Dorothea’s death a decade earlier). A shortcoming of the narrative is that, aside from Endicott, none among the large cast of witches is very well developed, making it harder to differentiate among the supporting characters. Still, that barely lessens the diversion provided by this engaging work.
The past is the gift that keeps on haunting in this gripping paranormal fantasy.Pub Date: June 26, 2023
ISBN: 9798399813998
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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.
