A fast-paced and fun fusion of supernatural romance and mainstream thriller.
This second installment of Merrill’s Gifted saga—which blends elements of contemporary fantasies, suspense novels, and paranormal romances—continues a story about the staff and students of a school for gifted kids whose lives have been impacted by tragedy.
Jackson Howe is a retired Army Ranger who is now working as an art teacher and head resident of the boys’ dormitory at Havenhart Academy, a boarding school in rural Arkansas founded to help heal and nurture students with supernatural abilities who have been traumatized in some way. An empath of sorts—Jackson can link telepathically to those he has a “Connection” with—he finds that he is deeply tied to Cassidy Mackenzie, the best friend of the academy’s counselor, Delaney Frost (the main character in the series opener). But Cassidy barely knows the 6-foot-4 hunk, and Jackson doesn’t know how to approach the woman whom he so desperately wants to start a relationship with. Yet when she is kidnapped by religious zealots associated with the head of a doomsday cult who calls himself His Right Hand—a man whose teenage daughter, Joanna, is now safe from her abusive father and attending Havenhart—Jackson uses his Connection with Cassidy to track her down to a location deep in the Florida Everglades. Rescuing her from the clutches of a cult leader with a cache of weapons and indoctrinated soldiers proves to be more dangerous than he expected. The deep focus on Jackson and Cassidy’s intimate bond is an obvious strength, powering the narrative with an I’ll-have-what-they’re-having kind of connection. At one point, Cassidy muses: “I’d barely known him then, I barely knew him now, but he was the embodiment of safety and warmth. I knew instinctively that I could trust him.” The romance element is complemented nicely by the relentless action and adventure throughout, creating an emotionally intense and page-turning narrative. Still, the extended fixation on both main characters’ self-doubts regarding the strength and validity of their relationship gets old quickly, and the author’s lack of overall descriptions (or worldbuilding) makes for a two-dimensional read in places.
A fast-paced and fun fusion of supernatural romance and mainstream thriller.Pub Date: April 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-953433-04-6
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Celie Bay Publications LLC
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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