This engaging series entry delivers a nuanced critique of despotism.
A new king returns his realm to a darker age in this third volume of a fantasy series.
A horse-riding accident has resulted in King Edward’s death. John now occupies the throne, the older of two sons who has never been known for his intellect or manners. Lord Alfred, Edward’s younger son, beloved in court for his curiosity and compassion, stands ready to aid the transition. But John is a lout and immediately begins reordering royal life in ways that flout tradition. He tries, for example, to hold his father’s funeral and his own coronation in the same week. Lady Alice, the dowager queen, and the bishop help him make a better decision, yet this is merely a taste of John’s contempt for what the preceding rulers have built. He goes on to disband the commercial Assembly and empties the court of the lords, including Richard Devereux, whose strong loyalty enriches the realm. Alfred and his wife, Gwendolyn, are among those who pray John’s power-drunk maneuvers will burn out, but life only gets worse. Scores of people lose their jobs as the king mismanages whole systems of rule. Rogue preachers incite violence in the streets. Knights and their checkpoints become ubiquitous to halt immigration. To save the last century of progress, drastic action must be taken. In this installment of her series, Taylor deftly depicts the fragility of a society in the grip of a madman. History buffs will appreciate how she illustrates the progressive mechanisms that launched the Renaissance, such as books being cheap enough to buy at markets. John is perhaps too perfect a villain, the type readers will want to reach through the page and strangle. The author speaks directly to Americans suffering in the current political climate, especially when Alfred wonders: “How do I teach my children that they have a duty to respect...the king despite the fact that he regularly fails to embody the virtues they are asked to demonstrate?” Alfred isn’t a perfect character himself, but he becomes a more rounded one when he has an affair with businesswoman Amelia Greslet. The next installment promises a massive emotional payoff.
This engaging series entry delivers a nuanced critique of despotism. (family trees, map)Pub Date: June 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68433-481-0
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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