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
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
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
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