A sensational cast fuels this exuberant tale that baffles as often as it charms.
Lightsey’s debut fantasy novel follows a teenager, seemingly lost in time, who may be destined to bring peace to hostile nations.
In the modern era, Helena, a 19-year-old witch and the Russian president’s daughter, is held captive by a Georgian army deserter on a boat at sea. She manages to escape her abductor’s clutches, only to wind up overboard and unconscious. When she comes to, she’s safely inside Sarkel Fortress in the year 1361, which is assuredly not the year Helena is from… though her memories are oddly jumbled. The people she encounters there believe that Helena is the new Essenoi, the only one who can defeat Icelos—a nightmare god whose destructive path threatens to incite war between Russia and Georgia. This god’s lair lies within a “phantom” fortress that only appears at a certain time and place. Helena has a shot at finding it with the help of eccentric pickpockets Dogett and Catiana, who have allegedly been there. Surely, she can conjure up a way to destroy the god of nightmares, especially with her book smarts and the new knowledge she unexpectedly picks up in the mid-14th century. Lightsey’s novel overflows with references to classic literature and religious texts, from Shakespeare’s works to the ancient I Ching. The determinedly convoluted plot repeatedly jolts Helena, who’s surprised when discovering she can, for example, read myriad languages. The narrative includes such reliably entertaining genre trademarks as a well-defined quest and fantastical creatures like hobgoblins and pixies. Helena is an appealing, intuitive hero, while her comrades, Dogett and Catiana, deliver abundant humor courtesy of their perpetual bickering and unforgettable insults (“Caluminous, full-gorged measle!”). The sublime ending, though open to interpretation, provides readers with welcome illumination.
A sensational cast fuels this exuberant tale that baffles as often as it charms.Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 9781794867437
Page Count: 234
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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
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
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