An immense yet immersive fantasy about succession and disorder after a monarch’s death.
An extensive fantasy focuses on a kingdom in turmoil.
When King Hexar returns to the city of Southpoint in the kingdom of Loran, conditions are not ideal. Hexar has been off fighting a profitless war that has accomplished little and amassed an enormous debt. Hexar’s daughter, Princess Lorana Eddenhold, was in charge while he was gone, and the domestic situation is no better. The peasants are overtaxed. If they cannot pay, the authorities will go so far as to take their children away. Those who cannot abide by the rules wind up executed. Or worse, they may be tortured in an ominous building known as the Red Tower. Another royal returning home is Hexar’s son, Jason Warchild. Jason has been at sea for two years fighting in the Holy Wars. Jason, Hexar, and Lorana are all attending what is known as Remembrance Day. It is a time of feasting and pageantry, though the excitement is cut short when Hexar is poisoned. Those behind Hexar’s murder hope the king’s exiled brother will now control the kingdom. But all is not so simple: A series of dangerous tests called the Kingstrials could install Jason as the rightful ruler. Yet the challenges of the Kingstrials are only the beginning. Schuette’s extensive world is an enticing one. Religion, class systems, and past events play large parts in the conflict. Consulting an informative history book, Lorana declares that the Kingstrials consist of “Sabotage. Savagery. Death.” While the sprawling novel is 902 pages, the story is eventful. Griffins fly; swords cleave; and the unsuspecting are sometimes slaughtered. Still, not every moment is vivid or exciting. For instance, individuals may make bland, action-hero pronouncements, such as “We’ve lingered in the open for too long. It’s dangerous.” Yet the fighting and feuding are matched in such a way to keep the intriguing plot moving swiftly. The competing interests make for a curious, highly detailed, engrossing fantasy.
An immense yet immersive fantasy about succession and disorder after a monarch’s death.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 902
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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