An intriguing but uneven fantasy with a compelling, expansive world and an awkward plot.
A dead trafficker starts dealing a drug found in the afterlife in Mobuogwu’s urban fantasy novel.
Andrew “AJ” Jackson is a low-level drug dealer selling weed and party drugs at a local college. When he’s suspected of giving the cops information, he’s murdered in front of his mother and sister. If AJ thought death would get him out of the drug-running game, he was sorely mistaken: The kingpin of the operation, Governor Reginald Tyson, has plans for AJ to traffic a different sort of product, now that he’s deceased. Upon waking after being shot, AJ finds himself in Animmo, a place for the dead (“No, Mr. Jackson, you’re not dreaming”), where he feels no emotions, no pain, nothing. Before he can get settled into what will become his new home, he is visited by Kester McKean, a fellow dealer in life who now mentors AJ in collecting and delivering a strange substance being sold in the land of the living as the drug “skooches.” AJ might not feel anything anymore, but his mother and sister are still in danger if he doesn’t comply, even if he doesn’t like the collection process. Among the living, Detective Maleek Shapiro is investigating an increasing number of deaths tied to this new street drug, and the name “Reginald” keeps coming up. Researching skooches, its dealers, and various other crimes connected to it leads to Maleek working with the Feds on their ongoing investigation. In this dark urban fantasy novel, Mobuogwu compellingly unspools a winding tale of drugs, death, and dark forces. The world of Animmo is a fascinating one, with lore and practices that could have used more explanation—for example, readers learn how the drug delivery system works, but not how it was discovered. With so much happening on both planes of existence, a less complicated narrative, or one more intensely focused on certain aspects, would have made this complicated narrative easier to digest.
An intriguing but uneven fantasy with a compelling, expansive world and an awkward plot.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9798991841801
Page Count: 305
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A unique concept that promises readers will find at least one, if not three, entwined but different narratives to enjoy.
When Vis is copied into two other realities, he must stop a god from repeatedly culling almost everyone back home.
Thousands of years ago, to prevent the Concurrence from enslaving everyone, the world was split into three near-identical copies: Res, Obiteum, and Luceum. To exist in all three worlds, to wield Will there, is to achieve synchronism. After the events in The Will of the Many (2023), which cost Vis his arm and the life of his friend, Vis achieves Synchronism. While Res-Vis must continue to play Hierarchy politics to find his friend’s killer, Obiteum-Vis finds a ruined world, where the dead are reanimated and used by Ka, the Concurrence, and the only other person to exist in synchronism. Meanwhile, Luceum-Vis is forced into a dispute between druids, their High Council, and their kings—with one king intent on killing him—and Vis has no idea why. On all worlds, Vis is as shrewd as ever, weighing his options, planning ahead, and doing what he must to survive. However, he, too, slowly diverges, doing things he swore he never would: cede his Will, use Will to control someone else, and reveal his true name. If at least one Vis cannot use his synchronism and power of Will to kill the Concurrence, no Vis will be safe, and another Cataclysm will cull those he loves on Res. Book Two of the Hierarchy series is a speculative fantasy that is at once Egyptian post-apocalyptic, Celtic medieval, and Roman dystopian, thanks to the multidimensional setting. Although the sprawling narrative at times overextends itself, Islington rewards patient readers with a compelling story, a cast of complex and diverse characters, and a glimpse into how far a good man can go before he’s lost. A symbol at the start of each chapter delineates which world and Vis it’s about. Readers should read The Will of the Many before attempting this volume, or they may be confused for the first several chapters and beyond.
A unique concept that promises readers will find at least one, if not three, entwined but different narratives to enjoy.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781982141233
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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