A dazzling blend of fantasy intrigue and historical drama that will haunt readers long after the final page.
A teenage girl uncovers dark secrets—both earthly and supernatural—in an attempt to rescue her brothers and clear her uncle’s name in Chow’s novel.
The year is 1925, and teenager Ling Shaw works at her uncle Dabak’s medicinal herbal shop in colonial Hong Kong. Tensions are high as the Canton labor strikes are just beginning, and a rash of child disappearances has swept the island. One night, Ling witnesses a woman murdered by a horrific vampirelike creature who rips out the victim’s eyes and stuffs her mouth with mysterious petals. When Dabak is accused of the crime, Ling sets out alongside her best friend and a shady gang member to find the truth. The stakes become even higher when Ling’s twin brothers disappear, and the suspect is none other than the city’s resident oracle—an old woman who may know more than she is letting on. Interspersed with Ling’s story is a series of flashbacks to the year 1923, where a mysterious man encounters visions and voices in the Guianas as those around him die of a mysterious “blood disease.” As the connection between the two stories crystallizes, Ling is forced to make a painful choice that could change his life forever. Chow’s complex character study is part supernatural tale, part historical drama. She deftly moves from the intricacies of real events (like the Canton labor strikes)—and their effects on different characters—to graphic horror scenes that would feel at home in a Stephen King novel: “Rage sent his hands deeper into the beast’s head. Putrid sludge oozed from the obliterated skull. Crimson streamed from the punctures in his own chest. The other shadows slithered closer…” A smooth narrative flow, realistic dialogue, and brisk pacing all conclude with an open-ended but somehow deliciously satisfying ending. Chow ultimately fuses themes of identity, family, and nationality with a terrifying vampire story—all resulting in a bloody good read.
A dazzling blend of fantasy intrigue and historical drama that will haunt readers long after the final page.Pub Date: July 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781964733036
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Ghastly Goings-On Press
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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