A dark and hopeful fable with obvious contemporary resonance.
Set in a fantasy version of early-12th-century England, this novel is an unholy and holy brew of Seven Samurai, “The Monkey’s Paw,” Frankenstein, and a reimagined Judeo-Christian cosmology.
In the village of Cosham, farming couple Jon and Margaret Turling are consumed by grief for their 12-year-old son, Willem, who died of a fever. Desperate, they seek the help of a sorcerer, Cain Caradoc, who agrees to raise their son from the dead in exchange for a sliver of his soul. Unfortunately, Willem has been dead for a year, and what rises from the grave is not exactly pretty…and is not welcome in Cosham. The intelligent, uncannily strong, but malformed being with Willem’s face and memories takes on the name Once-Was-Willem and begins a new life in the deep forest, making friends with the other strange creatures he encounters. Meanwhile, Cain Caradoc settles in the fortress of a local bandit lord, built atop an immense power source: the sleeping skeleton of Yaldabaoth the angel. Seeking to harness this vast power for himself and gain the immortality he’s always dreamed of having, Caradoc prepares to make a significant sacrifice of children’s souls, which he intends to glean from Cosham. The desperate villagers appeal to Once-Was-Willem and his new friends for aid, attempting (mostly without success) to swallow their fear and distrust of these monstrous beings—feelings which are mutual. Author Carey demonstrates again that he contains multitudes, jumping from subgenre to subgenre. Also as always, he uses a fantastical setting to consider societal and moral quandaries; in this instance, he explores complex issues of compassion and forgiveness in the wake of (literally) murderous prejudice and intolerance. Despite the story’s high body count, its take on those issues is weirdly optimistic and heartwarming.
A dark and hopeful fable with obvious contemporary resonance.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780316505024
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
© 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.
