A well-executed adventure that riffs on the darker aspects of European fairy tales.
A young woman must undertake a nightmarish quest for a possibly mythical artifact in this debut fantasy.
Eighteen-year-old Gisela Sauer once loved fairy tales, but she can no longer bring herself to believe in them. Since the death of her brother, Gisela has been forced to provide for her family, including her drunken father, her harried mother, and her special needs sister, Thora. The May Day festival—held in honor of her village’s patron goddess, Bergot—finds Gisela peddling milk and eggs in the town square. But May Day is not all dances and bonfires: Town tradition demands that each year eight young people be sent into the forest to search for the legendary Lost Crown to bring back as an offering to Bergot. Gisela considers it a death sentence, so, of course, this year she is one of the eight to receive a Black Letter summoning her for the mission. She has no choice but to go in order to protect her family from harm. At least the rakish lutist Brahm Wolf, who has made no secret of his affections for Gisela, is chosen as well. As Gisela quickly learns, magic is, in fact, real—and dangerous. She, Brahm, and their companions will have to navigate their way through obstacles from the very darkest of fairy tales in order to come back alive. Briar’s fantasy world, which is based on Germanic folklore, is rich and fearsome, as in this passage that Gisela narrates: “Snarling and snorting, the girl’s face transforms into a snout and her hands into clawed paws. A matted fur spreads over her skin as she cranes her neck to howl. Pawing into the ashes, the wolf darts for me.” There are a few elements that break the spell—the dialogue is completely modern, and some of the characters are a bit one-dimensional—but on the whole, the novel is immersive and fun. Gisela’s arc has some emotional heft, and the author isn’t afraid to tread a few steps into the horror genre. By the end, readers will hope that Briar will be back soon with another tale of the fantastic.
A well-executed adventure that riffs on the darker aspects of European fairy tales.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2020
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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