A whirlwind fantasy that will keep readers on their toes—much like the hero.
A woman without memories teams up with new friends to rediscover her past in Hall’s fantasy novel.
Kai wakes up in the forest with a woman on top of her busily removing Kai’s amulet and outerwear. Barely awake, unable to move much, and utterly confused about where—and who—she is, Kai can’t do much more than follow the thief as she runs away. Dressed only in a bandeau top and breeches (not to mention her strange eyes and bright hair), Kai is a shocking sight to the town she comes upon, and the citizens quickly consider her to be some sort of evil creature. Kai doesn’t exactly help her case by launching herself at the thief and throttling her in hopes of getting her amulet and clothes back. The townsfolk rally against her, demanding money in return for items broken during the scuffle. Of all people, the thief, called Olivia, comes to Kai’s rescue and offers her a place to stay while Kai works off her sudden debt. It doesn’t hurt that Olivia’s brother Jadon, the town blacksmith, is incredibly handsome. As if Kai’s luck wasn’t bad enough, soldiers attack the town, and a strange woman with magical abilities comes looking for Kai, bringing fire and vicious creatures (“another blast from the sky, this one bursting with flame. A fireball strikes the steeple of the chapel”). Kai knows she needs to get away fast to find out who she is—and where the wind powers she’s suddenly gained came from. Olivia and her very handsome brother decide to join her on her quest. In this romantic fantasy novel, the author throws readers into a new world, making it very easy to empathize with Kai, as she also has no idea where or who she is. Readers may feel a disconnect between Kai, Jadon, Olivia, and the rest of their world, as the crew feels more modern than the setting they inhabit. Still, readers who love a good fantasy adventure with plenty of action and a love story in the mix are sure to find something to enjoy here.
A whirlwind fantasy that will keep readers on their toes—much like the hero.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781649374400
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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