An inventive and often deeply involving fantasy that sometimes supplies extraneous details.
A prince leads the remnants of his destroyed realm across the seas to start anew in this debut fantasy.
The island Kingdom of Atalantyx is the greatest in all the world. Wealthy, prestigious, and powerful, Atalantyx gobbles up smaller kingdoms, always endeavoring to expand its empire and spread monotheism among the heathens. Prince Erthal makes an unfortunate marriage with a pagan princess and then ascends to the throne, causing immense unrest. His 19-year-old younger brother, Prince Othrun, the novel’s narrator, leads a rebellion that fails, and the renegade and his followers are exiled. Guided by an angel’s message promising that he’s the chosen one, Othrun urges the exiles’ 18 ships to quickly sail west to the continent of Acremia—and they are just in time to avoid destruction by a tidal wave that utterly engulfs Atalantyx, leaving the rebels the only survivors. On landing in Southern Acremia, Othrun immediately discovers a world of trouble, compelling him to defend himself, gamble on whom to trust, forge alliances, and find refuge in a new homeland. Though the angel’s counsel heartens him, other forces—such as a beautiful pagan enchantress—unsettle him, and there will be many challenges to overcome. In his novel, Stuart presents a complex, fully realized world that intelligently draws on the Atlantis legend. Othrun is ambitious and skilled but bound by limited ideas, providing believable conflict. Extensive, imaginative worldbuilding and stirring battle scenes bear resemblance to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, but Stuart’s lone first-person narrator doesn’t offer that saga’s rich variety of viewpoints and settings. Though well-written, the book is frequently long-winded to no purpose (including an extensive, unnecessary description of Atalantyx’s capital city, chief buildings and districts, environs, and climate) and delivers a frustrating ending.
An inventive and often deeply involving fantasy that sometimes supplies extraneous details. (maps, appendices)Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-5255-8932-4
Page Count: 414
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2021
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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