An engaging adventure and a promising beginning to a new fantasy series.
In Landers’ fantasy series starter, a young acolyte who lacks confidence goes on a mission to save her realm.
Nineteen-year-old Cerise Solon is following tradition as her family’s second child, by serving the goddess Shiera as an oracle, or Seer, in training. However, she’s yet to receive the gift of foresight. The Reverend Mother gets news while in a trance that the temple emissary to His Majesty Kian Hannibal Mortara has died, and she asks Cerise to replace her. After Cerise arrives in the kingdom of Mortara, the story of the Great Betrayal becomes more real for her; during that seminal event, the lords of the Allied Realm’s four lands attempted to murder Shiera, and she cursed the kingdoms as a result. Mortara’s curse includes the fact that King Kian lives a normal life during the day and vanishes at night, and he’ll disappear permanently on his 21st birthday, like many Mortara firstborns. After a rough start at the kingdom, Cerise finds herself falling for Kian, and the feeling is mutual. She resolves to find a way to break the curse, not just for Kian, but for her friend Daerick Calatris and her sister Nina’s unborn child. While on a mission to recover the Petros Blade, Cerise’s gift finally manifests, but she’ll need to master her abilities quickly to save the Allied Realms and those she loves. Landers constructs a winning fictional world for an intriguing new series, although much of the novel takes place in Mortara alone. She also deserves credit for expanding beyond the narrative device of Shiera’s curse in this first volume. However, there are still plenty of the Allied Realms to potentially explore in future installments. Landers also establishes a believable cast, beginning with Cerise, whose self-doubt is relatable; Kian and Daerick are shown to be living their lives as bravely as they can, despite what fate seems to have in store for them. The fast-paced narrative forces Cerise to grow up quickly, and later entries will likely explore intriguing new territory.
An engaging adventure and a promising beginning to a new fantasy series.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781649377135
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2024
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
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
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