An ambitiously vast but tightly wound tale of destiny.
Wolf presents an SF/fantasy novel about four youngsters whose connection to a prophecy upends their later lives.
In 2177, Ariaas Haran Ebronds attends an auction with one goal: to get back his four grandchildren. Unfortunately, only three of them are up for sale, and Ariaas only succeeds in buying back one of them. That boy, Brenor, and his siblings aren’t like other children, as they are all tied to the widely known prophecy of the Canen Dera, which states that they will grow up and, as Ariaas puts it, “destroy us all” with “more power than anyone [has] ever seen, not in all our history.” He makes sure that Brenor is safe at a place called Aroun Vaer. Elsewhere, Brenor’s sister, Lenora, lives a simple but similarly secluded life in the northern forest. When, in the year 2200, the king suddenly summons her, it’s clear to her that she must flee for her own safety. She winds up connecting with Ariaas and Brenor, who dashed into action after they received word that she was on the run. That leaves two more siblings in potential danger, and plenty of trouble afoot. A young woman named Sissel Vakarra is taken away from her ailing grandmother by soldiers after apparently killing someone; her story initially seems disconnected from the story of the siblings, and the narrative transitions between the two plotlines are not always smooth. Just as momentum is building in the Lenora storyline, for instance, the focus changes to Sissel taking a quiet walk with her grandparent. There are occasionally verbose and awkward passages that slow the pace: “The younger brother of the king had taken him prisoner and locked him in the dungeon of the castle awaiting a public execution for a crime the younger brother himself committed.” The premise is well-crafted, however, and the action increases as the characters face and fight back against escalating dangers. Even with the story’s complexities and large cast, the suspense remains high, and the main players’ futures are uncertain.
An ambitiously vast but tightly wound tale of destiny.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781963029000
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Alex Parker Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2025
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: Feb. 2, 2026
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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