Fantasy that entertains and enlightens.
The first installment of Salvatore’s new fantasy trilogy returns readers to the Forgotten Realms with an adventure revolving around Catti-brie, the wife of the author’s signature character, the dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden.
After the birth of their daughter, Brienne, Drizzt is markedly changed—spending more time contemplating deep existential questions and trying to rediscover the clarity and purpose in his life. To those ends, he decides to travel with his toddler daughter to the Monastery of the Yellow Rose to train with the monks and introduce Brienne to Grandmaster Kane. As Drizzt embarks on his own spiritual quest, his wife joins forces with smooth-talking drow mercenary Jarlaxle, human assassin Artemis Enteri, and weapons master Zaknafein, Drizzt’s father. At Jarlaxle’s request, the quartet of adventurers (via magic portal) travel to the top of the world searching for a person who, if found, could stop the drow city-state of Menzoberranzan from destroying itself in a civil war. But aside from almost dying multiple times over in the strange world without true night—the killing cold, frost giants, polar worms, etc.—the group finds something completely unexpected, a revelation that will change the way they look at the world, and themselves, forever. Longtime fans of Drizzt Do’Urden will surely enjoy the novel’s breakneck pacing, nonstop action, cast of familiar and beloved characters, and deep philosophical exploration throughout. This storyline, in particular, packs a thematic wallop that is both timely and timeless. “We’re never to see peace—none of us—until we come to recognize that a child of a culture that is not our own is as precious as one who is.” And although the transitions between the two story threads aren’t exactly smooth, some fight scenes are a bit flat, and the conclusion is little more than a respite until the next installment, readers should embrace Salvatore’s newest adventure with Drizzt and company.
Fantasy that entertains and enlightens.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-302977-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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
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