A fascinatingly detailed and murder-fueled adventure in a violent fantasy setting.
In Walker’s fantasy novel, the destinies of disparate characters converge in a spasm of violence.
Death haunts the land of Baelon: Years ago, young Princess Lewen died, followed by her mother, Queen Isadora, and the great architect Adrian Dunn. As the book opens, a man named Reynard Rascall, with the help of his eager principal henchman, Spiro, kills a terrified underling named Kasparr, who’s been underperforming recently as a member of the Guild of Takers. In the kingdoms of Baelon, the Guild is an all-pervasive crime syndicate, “an unpleasant fact of life” throughout the land. Its leaders plot the fates of entire nations in their secluded headquarters; overseers (such as Reynard) are capos controlling regions, and at the bottom of the ladder are the lowly street-level Takers. Reynard and Spiro travel to Kasparr’s district to examine his books, but, unbeknownst to them, the bookkeeper himself has been murdered by a group of Takers. Meanwhile, Mari Dunn, the architect’s widow, is plagued by visions predicting the assassination of King Axil of Aranox; the king’s marshal, Erik Carson, acts to save the king, and the king’s former guardsman, the grizzled warrior Rolft Aerns, returns to the capital city on a vengeance quest of his own—he’s eventually aided by Mari’s daughter, Sibil. Walker’s decision to alternate his narrative focus between all of these characters is smart and well done here, enabling him to largely avoid the stilted exposition that’s the bane of so many fantasy novels. The viewpoint-jumping keeps the reading experience fresh, though it sometimes slows momentum and gives rise to confusion. Some characters are unavoidably more compelling than others—it’s a safe bet that most readers will favor the hilarious duo of Reynard and Spiro (“Intuition, my friend,” Reynard taunts poor Spiro at one point. “A faithful companion of the thoughtful. Little wonder you’ve not met”).
A fascinatingly detailed and murder-fueled adventure in a violent fantasy setting.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798988923213
Page Count: 305
Publisher: Fairytale Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© 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.
