A vibrant array of colorful characters guides readers through this absorbing fantasy.
A warrior and his half-angel lover confront a powerful sorcerer threatening their war-torn land in this fantasy sequel.
Civil war has devastated the realm of Ilyar, as rebel forces have besieged its capital. Aleksei Drago, lord captain of Her Majesty’s Legion, couldn’t stop the rebellion but can still protect the queen. He sends her and the princess east—away from the revolutionaries—while he rushes to the enemy’s next targeted city. But it’s the man he loves, Jonas Belgi, who may need his help most. Jonas, the queen’s nephew, prince, and an angel-human hybrid, is up north with the Seraphima. He’s effectively a prisoner since the angels won’t let him leave, ostensibly protecting him from the Demon Bael. This evil Magus has already cursed Jonas with the “Demonic Presence.” If the Presence takes hold of Jonas outside the angels’shields, it could destroy the world. Aleksei plans to free his future husband, but the villains, unable to get their clutches on Jonas, go after the lord captain. He’s soon facing a “wind demon”—a deadly, nearly invisible entity. Elsewhere, someone has taken the princess while Aleksei and others fight to regain Ilyar’s capital. Both Aleksei, a fierce Hunter, and Jonas, a Magus, have formidable abilities. The prince is a shape-shifter, and his lover has the Mantle, an astonishing power that expels tendrils from Aleksei’s body that feed off others’ energies. All the while, Jonas fears he’ll lose control to the Presence, which will terrorize the world using him as its human host.
McIntire’s epic tale accommodates an extensive cast. But the story unfolds across a relatively small landscape, making the various subplots easy to follow. For example, the search for the princess entails traveling west to Fanj, and a menace awaits in the mountains along the way. Despite the lengthy narrative, tension remains high throughout; Bael and his ilk provide a constant threat, abducting some and killing others as the war rages. There’s action, too, though it’s often over in a flash, especially since the Mantle effortlessly dispatches villains. This curious being, which occasionally talks to Aleksei and demands to feed, somewhat resembles the Marvel character Venom. The lord captain’s indisputable strength fuses well with his devotion to Jonas; even with only a spattering of romantic interludes, his love clearly drives him. But supporting characters don’t let the two leads completely steal the spotlight. Katherine, Aleksei’s friend, braves enemy territory as a spy. Aleksei’s cousin Roux Devaan shows off his “Darting” skill, which allows him to “flicker from one point to another.” McIntire complements his characters and worldbuilding with lucid details: “The market had been built in the center of the village, a great open ring of small booths that appeared to have stood for decades….Above each booth was a strip of brightly dyed cloth, Fanja script painted roughly across it alongside pictograms, displaying the nature of the wares available.” Though the author ties up a few subplots, he leaves unresolved bits for the series’ third installment.
A vibrant array of colorful characters guides readers through this absorbing fantasy.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 661
Publisher: Black Dove Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2021
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
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
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