A dizzyingly dense fantasy adventure that occasionally gets away from itself.
When the Devil escapes from Hell, the Goddess of Death must track him down in Narita’s fantasy novel.
The Demon King Lucifer has escaped from his prison in Hell. The High Court, a ruling group of deities, places the responsibility for his breakout on the shoulders of Primrose Titan, the Goddess of Death. The long-lived reaper of souls with the paradoxically innocent face shares hundreds of years of history with the mad, murderous Devil, and not just as his jailer—before the bloody rampage that forced Primrose to lock him away, Lucifer had asked her to marry him. Yet even with the ability to summon undead legions to her side and the armies of Hell at her command, the only way to kill a demon or a god with a soul is with a special weapon: their own unique Soul Dagger. Her search for this object is hindered by a plethora of enemies, both demonic and divine, as some of her fellow gods suspect her of releasing Lucifer herself, while others make attempts on her life to steal her power. As she faces dragons, vampyres, and the Devil’s siblings, her hunt begins to reveal complicated truths about herself, her false indifference toward mortals facing death, and the strange man who haunts her dreams and evokes a past she cannot recall. The author’s sword-wielding, stiletto-wearing, leather-jacketed heroine is a prototypical strong female protagonist, her quiet and caring personality hidden by sarcastic banter and sass (“My friend claimed I had brown puppy dog eyes and that the roundness of my pale face made me appear grandmotherly and nurturing. I almost incinerated her for that”). The novel’s worldbuilding is vast in its mythology and often convoluted, often distracting the reader from the hunt for Lucifer and his dagger. The action has a cinematic quality, full of magic fire and ice, sword fights, and even a big battle between armies, adding a larger-than-life element to the emotional conflicts and political posturing of gods and monsters. Nothing here reinvents the genre’s wheel, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining, and an ironic ending for the Goddess of Death builds great intrigue for the series’ next entry.
A dizzyingly dense fantasy adventure that occasionally gets away from itself.Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9798987676219
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Underworld Publishing House LLC
Review Posted Online: March 15, 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
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
© Copyright 2026 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.
