An enjoyable and enticing page-turner.
Burchard offers a modern take on the Arthurian legend in which a struggling Los Angeles–based actor finds herself in the court of Camelot.
It’s the year 2000, and Cassandra “Casey” Clemens, who’s about to turn 40, is dealing with a lot of bad news. First, she discovers that she’s being fired from her gig as the star of a series of cleaning product ads; then, when she tries to surprise her married boyfriend at the airport, she sees that his pregnant wife is already there. When she gets a moment alone with him, Casey decides to salvage some of her dignity by pretending she’s at the airport not to meet him but to fly to London for a new acting job. So off to London she goes, headed to a small town called Small Common, where she hopes to have zero human contact and recover at her leisure. However, after a freak horse-riding accident, she has a strange encounter with an even stranger man holding a bloody sword. Then she notices dead bodies around her, and it soon becomes clear that this isn’t Hollywood make-believe: She’s somehow been sent to Arthurian times. Now these odd soldiers have her in chains and a clear command to bring her to their king; it turns out that she’s a very important person in this time and place. Over the course of this novel, Burchard spins a fun fantasy tale. Narrator Casey has a narrative voice that’s sometimes laugh-out-loud funny (“Running away from everything I knew wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but it wasn’t the dumbest, either”), and the story in which she finds herself balances humor and action in a way that flows naturally. Casey is portrayed as just flawed enough to be relatable, and even in Arthurian times, she still reads as a real person that one would like to know. The supporting cast, both in modern and olden times, effectively allows Casey to shine more brightly.
An enjoyable and enticing page-turner.Pub Date: May 11, 2023
ISBN: 9780985883775
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Boz Books
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
