Top-notch characters and sensational artwork whip up a crowd-pleasing series starter.
A goat searching for the owner of a magical book comes across kindly strangers and formidable foes in Comtois’ graphic novel.
Zeek is a young goat and a humble librarian at a monastery. His daily excitement consists of snacking on freshly baked bread and reading adventure stories. One day, while shelving books, Zeek discovers one he’s never seen before (“it’s a very peculiar book indeed”). When opened, it emits a burst of light and knocks the librarian unconscious. The abbot, a soft-spoken bear, determines this book is one of magic; knowing Zeek has long yearned for an adventure of his own, he sends him to find its owner. Zeek’s first stop is a village where an apothecary’s customer has bought rare ingredients used in alchemical recipes. For every accommodating person Zeek encounters, there’s another who’s outright sinister, from callous thugs to scary types who are after the book. Luckily, Zeek teams up with traveling thieves Immane, a muscle-bound ram, and the unironically named Mouse. They all soon get an inkling as to the book’s extraordinary nature and power. Comtois’ deft character development makes it easy to dote on Zeek; he’s an orphan who doesn’t hesitate to help others, even at his own peril. His adventure reveals details of a world set in a medievallike period (with knights in armor) in which space travel also exists. The cast includes anthropomorphic animals, most of whom tower over Zeek; even Mouse, who often runs ahead of him (or sits on Immane’s shoulder), seems bigger. Much of the story is told through the visuals, courtesy of the author’s illustrations. The images detail striking physical traits (like Mouse’s tail or the abbot’s round belly) and create a sublime atmosphere with pitch-black shadows and blue-grey scenes illuminated by torches or candlelight. The ending makes it apparent that this delightful story is far from over.
Top-notch characters and sensational artwork whip up a crowd-pleasing series starter.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781545817919
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 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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