A poorly developed twist on magic school fantasy stories.
Two outcast teens join forces to fight an infamous witch who’s at the head of a violent rebellion.
Anabelle Gage has one year left to live unless she transfers her Pith to a new body. Working as a maid, she can’t afford the cost of replacing her decaying Edgar chassis; all her hopes ride on attending Paragon Runic Academy, Caimor’s ultra-exclusive magic school. But when her rejection letter arrives, desperation drives Ana into a reckless heist that goes horribly wrong and a criminal partnership with someone she never expected would help her: Nicholas Carriwitch, Paragon’s headmaster. Carriwitch sees Ana’s potential and wants her help hunting down Khaiovhe, the dark witch in charge of the international terrorist organization Commonplace. However, Ana won’t be working alone. Weston Brown, an Ousted noble and former Paragon student, lost everything when his mother exiled him—working for Carriwitch and killing Khaiovhe is Wes’ only chance to return to his old life. Although this debut shows glimmers of potential, with its characters’ urgent goals and its overarching sense of danger, the story suffers from messy worldbuilding and uneven pacing. Ana, who presents as the fantasy equivalent of white and East Asian, with her Caimorian father and Shenti mother, describes her Edgar chassis as ethnically vague. Wes is cued white. The exploration of gender identity in this world conflates sex and gender, presenting a stuck-in-the-wrong-body narrative.
A poorly developed twist on magic school fantasy stories. (content warnings, the four schools of magic, author’s note) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781250362971
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
Black is building a complex mythology; now is a great time to tune in.
Black is back with another dark tale of Faerie, this one set in Faerie and launching a new trilogy.
Jude—broken, rebuilt, fueled by anger and a sense of powerlessness—has never recovered from watching her adoptive Faerie father murder her parents. Human Jude (whose brown hair curls and whose skin color is never described) both hates and loves Madoc, whose murderous nature is true to his Faerie self and who in his way loves her. Brought up among the Gentry, Jude has never felt at ease, but after a decade, Faerie has become her home despite the constant peril. Black’s latest looks at nature and nurture and spins a tale of court intrigue, bloodshed, and a truly messed-up relationship that might be the saving of Jude and the titular prince, who, like Jude, has been shaped by the cruelties of others. Fierce and observant Jude is utterly unaware of the currents that swirl around her. She fights, plots, even murders enemies, but she must also navigate her relationship with her complex family (human, Faerie, and mixed). This is a heady blend of Faerie lore, high fantasy, and high school drama, dripping with description that brings the dangerous but tempting world of Faerie to life.
Black is building a complex mythology; now is a great time to tune in. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-31027-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
A taut yet winding mystery that will keep readers guessing.
In this thriller, a flyer on the cheer team at her small-town Texas high school is dragged back into the awful events that claimed her best friend and her boyfriend.
Senior Iris Henley was horrified when her boyfriend, Rocky Koenig, and her former best friend, Lynette Zeiger, were found dead in a presumed murder-suicide the previous school year. She and Lynette, whose drug use was spiraling out of control, had already fallen out, but Iris had no idea Rocky was cheating on her with Lynette. But when anonymous social media posts claim that Iris herself is responsible for their deaths, her life becomes a nightmare of accusations and betrayal. Employing first-person, present-tense narration that feels immediate and anxious, this mystery builds steadily over the course of 25 days during which Iris feels increasingly desperate and unsure whom she can trust. Her troubled relationships with her friends and family are multidimensional and render her a sympathetic and likable narrator, who worries about her own reliability as she was drunk and high the night of the deaths. In particular, a subplot involving Iris’ growing understanding of her younger sister, Noelle, lends emotional depth to this whodunit. The central cast is white, and surnames suggest that some members of the supporting cast are Latine, including Iris’ best friend.
A taut yet winding mystery that will keep readers guessing. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9781250323835
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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