Readers of historical fantasy will love the battles, intrigue, and imagination in this sprawling tale.
A young princess fights to claim her throne and unite her realm in Arama’s sweeping historical fantasy.
On her 10th birthday, Princess Andrada of Kerta is ordered by the father she’s never met to begin a traditional boy’s education—her late mother’s wish. King Cothelas intends for his daughter to be his heir, but when she fails the King’s Challenge, she’s forced into an arranged marriage with King Nicetas of Valdavia. Nicetas is a cold and bitter man, haunted by an attempt on his life by Scorilus, the King of Steppewynd, and he leaves Andrada alone for months on end while he lives with his lover, the medicine woman Una. The kingdoms of Kerta, Valdavia, and Steppewynd, neighbors abutting the Black Sea, were once the single realm of Dhawosia; they now narrowly maintain their independence from the Roman Empire as they fret and squabble amongst themselves (King Cothelas demands King Nicetas’ first-born son by Andrada; King Scorilus dreamed of being an explorer, not a ruler). When tragedy strikes, Nicetas accuses Andrada of murder, and the three kingdoms go to war. In the chaos, Andrada must find her resolve and courage to try to unite her divided people. This well-crafted novel features intricate worldbuilding that’s expertly woven into the story with elegant prose: “The Old Temple of Sehul had been built by the founders of Sehuldava to capture the light of the sun on a high holy day. The light would enter the temple through a small window and reach the inner chamber.” The supporting characters often feel two-dimensional, however, with singular motivations that make their actions (and a good portion of the plot) predictable. But all the various threads come together neatly in the story’s final act for a rousing finish, and the ending provides a tidy setup for the upcoming sequel.
Readers of historical fantasy will love the battles, intrigue, and imagination in this sprawling tale.Pub Date: March 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798989873104
Page Count: 377
Publisher: Dhawosia Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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