Indelible characters carry this epic, heartfelt, and magic-infused tale.
A hulking escapee from a mythic prison and a courageous young girl form an unlikely bond in Sweitzer’s fantasy novel.
Historian Edwin rolls into the bustling city of Millthrace with astonishing news. He’s stumbled upon the lost prison of Nerikan, which once, the story goes, confined monsters and magic-wielding “Aurlings.” Apparently proving his claim, a giant “ogre” makes a sudden, smashing appearance and scares everyone, save the plucky 12-year-old orphan Olen. She harbors an unusual ability that likely means she’s an Aurling, and she believes that her parents (whom she doesn’t know) are Aurlings as well. Olen asks the ogre (Bakku, as he calls himself) to guide her across the land of Eisen to her alleged hometown, where she hopes to find her parents. Millthrace soldiers and others chase Olen, Bakku, and Edwin, planning to throw the colossal fugitive back into Nerikan. Sweitzer’s delightful novel truly engages the senses, brimming with details from the creepy clicking sounds the monstrous underworld “gore” creatures make to the image of tiny Olen riding Bakku like a bucking bronco (“Now she sat on the shoulders of a giant, lost in the woods, facing Millthrace’s greatest soldier”). The dynamic cast includes baddies in dogged pursuit, weird creatures that pop up in fierce confrontations, Olen’s endearing orphan “sisters,” and Timo, a charismatic trader Edwin befriends in the desert. The characters are consistently surprising, whether choosing to betray someone or proving themselves in battle. The author takes readers across the expanse of the richly imagined Eisen, around forests, into various cities and villages, and through harrowing mountains. No journey, however, is more fulfilling than the emotional one at this story’s core, especially as Olen delves deeper into her origins and steadily grows closer to Bakku.
Indelible characters carry this epic, heartfelt, and magic-infused tale.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2023
ISBN: 9798986557816
Page Count: 398
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.
This is wizard Harry Dresden’s yearlong mourning period for Karrin Murphy, the woman he loved.
If you keep upping your protagonist’s powers throughout a series, then you must balance the scales by increasing the number and strength of their enemies—as well as seriously messing with their personal life. Over the course of the Dresden Files, Harry Dresden, Chicago PI and now one of the most powerful wizards in the world, thought his first love was dead (she wasn’t), sacrificed his half-vampire girlfriend on an altar to save their child, lost another girlfriend when they learned she’d been mind-controlled into their relationship, bound himself into servitude as the Fae Queen Mab’s Winter Knight, and, for the length of an entire book, thought he himself was dead (he wasn’t). But nothing has hit quite as hard as the death of Karrin Murphy, the former police lieutenant who was his quasi-partner, friend, and, after a slow burn across many books, lover. Chicago is in a terrible state following a battle with Ethniu the Titan and her Fomor army, and Harry is doing his best to confront the monsters, dark magic, and anti-supernatural prejudice running wild amid the slowly rebuilding city. He’s also trying to save his half brother Thomas from two different death sentences, train a new apprentice, and juggle a relationship with Thomas’ half sister Lara, the dangerously seductive vampire Queen Mab is forcing him to marry. But he’s doing all this while nearly crushed by grief that threatens his judgment and disturbs his control over his magical powers. Butcher really makes you feel the dark, depressive state Harry exists in as well as the effect it’s having on his friends. Despite all that happens in it, this book is a pause as well as a setup for the series’ planned conclusion, an epic conflict with the eldritch creatures known as “the Outsiders.” It’s a tough, redemptive pause that could be a real drag, but thankfully, it’s not, because Butcher shows balance, too: Even as the crises pile up, so do the help and goodwill from unexpected sources.
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593199336
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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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