A historically rich, vengeance-fueled tale.
Prochaska’s fantasy novel follows a widow who, having trained in magic, seeks revenge in early 11th-century Iceland.
After her husband dies, Bergthora Bjornsdóttir leaves her Greenland farm and returns to Iceland, her place of birth. Iceland has only recently converted to Christianity, though many of the country’s people see the Christian god as merely a new addition to the old gods to whom they’ve long made sacrifices. Bergthora reunites with her brother and her childhood friend Kjartan, but she’s truly returned for retribution, pursuing someone regarding a grim secret that she’s harbored for decades. Bergthora arrives in time for a wedding: Kjartan’s daughter Engilborg marries Egill, a considerably older chieftain. Egill is up to no good, using seeress Ægileif’s dark heathen magic for his own sinister purposes. Bergthora knows magic as well, courtesy of a woman back in Greenland. As her revenge plan gradually rolls out, a string of unexplained events (like the sight of a walking, talking corpse) and a character’s murderous intent stir up a number of startling pasts. Prochaska conveys this tale through various perspectives: Sometimes, the text reads like a historical textbook; other sections feature alternating first-person narrations from Bergthora, Engilborg, and others; and then there is the account of a monk named Helgi, whose bishop in 14th-century Greenland assigns him the task of writing Bergthora’s saga. The author’s relaxed, concise prose masterfully compacts the epic narrative, covering decades without truncating or rushing the story. While the characters’ individual narrations are relatively indistinguishable, they memorably chronicle harrowing days of deception, religious struggles, and assorted magic (“The rune spell she had given Egill aroused in him a desire, but it withered away as soon as he engaged in the act”). Thorough character development further refines this novel, especially in the cases of Bergthora (Bergthora’s marriage to Steinkell proves to be a convincing union of unforeseen obstacles and mutual devotion), Kjartan, and, surprisingly, Helgi. The worthy final act culminates in a bizarre yet unforgettable ending.
A historically rich, vengeance-fueled tale.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9791220153713
Page Count: 346
Publisher: Europa Edizioni
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2024
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
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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