Indelible characters ignite this magical tale set in an effervescent world.
In Quinn’s fantasy novel, a human king begins an offbeat relationship with a fairy queen.
Dante, the Mage King of Avonbend, needs more crops for his people. Dante eyes a piece of lush, untended land; the only problem is that it’s in Fairyland, which the human kingdoms fought in the Winged War a half-millennium ago. Regardless, Dante heads that way and asks the Fairy Queen to give him the land out of generosity rather than offering a trade. She humiliates him by laughing, and he vows to kill her, which the Fairy Queen sees as a challenge. She’s excited to have a nemesis, and she prompts one-on-one battles with the Mage King. But the more times these two adversaries meet, the more they’re drawn to one another. Meanwhile, there’s tension among the humans, some of whom believe magic, like the kind Dante wields, is corrupt. The Fairy Queen is also convinced that the people Dante has been helping will turn on him. Quinn masterfully develops the lead characters’ growing bond. The Fairy Queen is the more enthralling one; her frequent laughter is more playful than condescending, and she’s evocatively surrounded by spiders and their silk (in Fairyland, she’s the Queen of Spiders). Others in the cast shine as well, from Dante, who isn’t as impetuous as he initially seems, to Elvine, Dante’s trusted advisor and wonderfully blunt friend (“She told me you promised to destroy her, by the way. Best of luck with that. For your funeral, shall I order bluebells or larkspurs?”). While readers are treated to displays of magic (like teleporting fairy rings), the narrative focuses more on the political climate and potential unrest. (One particularly shocking incident puts everyone in peril and spurs on a suspenseful final act.) Throughout the novel, the author lingers on colorful visuals, describing the Fairy Queen draped in “glittering pink silk” and one king’s “cold, vivid eyes, blue as despair.”
Indelible characters ignite this magical tale set in an effervescent world.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2025
ISBN: 9798218687960
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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