A dreamy assortment of tales that contain kernels of worldly truth.
Wilkie presents a collection of seven short stories set in a fantastical realm of magic, danger, and profound lessons.
The common thread weaving through these tales is that they all take place in the imaginary Kingdom of Imlay, a coastal locale where magic and spirits exist alongside humans. Beyond that, each tale is unique in its characters, morals, and adventures. The collection opens with “The River Keeper,” featuring the bright and outspoken child Ya, who reports to her mother, Myranda, that the river dividing Imlay into its northern and southern provinces is cloudy and “sick.” The local Council approves an expedition to follow the waters east to discover the source of its sickness. Myranda leads the exploratory group, but Ya is the true hero when she finds the legendary River Keeper and receives a monumental responsibility that will change her life. In what may be the book’s most haunting offering, “A Dream for a Dream,” children and adults are inexplicably separated from one another: “The Children didn’t know their parents. In fact, they didn’t know what parents were….Every so often, a new Child would appear in their midst. No one questioned this because they had each, in their own turn, appeared in a similar manner.” The children begin having cryptic dreams that may hold the key to where they are and from where they came. “The Day After Tomorrow”is perhaps the book’s most traditional offering: a tale of a king who wishes to see the future in order to prevent disaster and to better rule his kingdom. When a court magician grants his wish, the monarch discovers that there’s a price to be paid for such a gift.
Although the subject matter varies, Wilkie infuses a similar dreamlike feel throughout all seven tales by incorporating elements of the magical alongside the realistic. Often, the reader must wait a bit to encounter the particular magic of a given story, creating a kind of tension that generates momentum. Wilkie’s writing style is simple yet effective, with a slight tendency toward the old-fashioned, as in “The Day After Tomorrow”: “One particular morning in midsummer, the King woke with the dawn bell in a cold sweat and a dreadful premonition.” Each work is accompanied by Alemanno’s occasional black-and-white sketches, adding to the wispy, ethereal tone that permeates the collection. The beliefs expressed are familiar ones, such as the importance of taking care of the earth (in the title story, which may strike readers as reminiscent of some Native American folklore) and the price of greed (“The Pit of Truth,” whose talking animals lend it a particularly mythic feel). Some readers may find the morals to be familiar to the point of being redundant, but they do make the stories feel like fairy tales that have been passed down from one generation to another. Although readers don’t get much time to get to know and love the protagonists, the strength of the narratives lies in their imaginative takes on well-worn lessons.
A dreamy assortment of tales that contain kernels of worldly truth.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9798891382022
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Subplot Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.
This is wizard Harry Dresden’s yearlong mourning period for Karrin Murphy, the woman he loved.
If you keep upping your protagonist’s powers throughout a series, then you must balance the scales by increasing the number and strength of their enemies—as well as seriously messing with their personal life. Over the course of the Dresden Files, Harry Dresden, Chicago PI and now one of the most powerful wizards in the world, thought his first love was dead (she wasn’t), sacrificed his half-vampire girlfriend on an altar to save their child, lost another girlfriend when they learned she’d been mind-controlled into their relationship, bound himself into servitude as the Fae Queen Mab’s Winter Knight, and, for the length of an entire book, thought he himself was dead (he wasn’t). But nothing has hit quite as hard as the death of Karrin Murphy, the former police lieutenant who was his quasi-partner, friend, and, after a slow burn across many books, lover. Chicago is in a terrible state following a battle with Ethniu the Titan and her Fomor army, and Harry is doing his best to confront the monsters, dark magic, and anti-supernatural prejudice running wild amid the slowly rebuilding city. He’s also trying to save his half brother Thomas from two different death sentences, train a new apprentice, and juggle a relationship with Thomas’ half sister Lara, the dangerously seductive vampire Queen Mab is forcing him to marry. But he’s doing all this while nearly crushed by grief that threatens his judgment and disturbs his control over his magical powers. Butcher really makes you feel the dark, depressive state Harry exists in as well as the effect it’s having on his friends. Despite all that happens in it, this book is a pause as well as a setup for the series’ planned conclusion, an epic conflict with the eldritch creatures known as “the Outsiders.” It’s a tough, redemptive pause that could be a real drag, but thankfully, it’s not, because Butcher shows balance, too: Even as the crises pile up, so do the help and goodwill from unexpected sources.
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593199336
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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