This grim, passionate tale will scorch readers.
A young soldier with untapped abilities must protect her new queen in this epic fantasy.
In the realm of Kaizia, Saiden is a member of the deadly Legion. She and her partner, Mozare, take missions from Gen. Nakti on behalf of Loralei, their young and newly enthroned queen. In Kaizia’s culture, the Gifted develop their magical powers when they’re teenagers. Saiden, with her red mane, is Blood-Cursed, supposedly too dangerous to live because of her connection to both gods. Her powers never manifested, however. She’s become a fearsome warrior with a reputation that’s earned her a post in the Queen’s Guard. Guarding Loralei involves protecting Kaizia from dangers, including the Enlightened, religious fanatics who are willing “to die to bring the gods closer to earth.” There’s also an underground Rebellion led by the charismatic Revon, who claims to know an ugly truth about Kaizia society. While Mozare cares deeply for Saiden, his allegiance may be compromised. He wants to dismantle the realm’s foul monarchy, which abides by brutality against common people. When Saiden learns the truth about her own family’s past, will she join the Rebellion? In her series opener, Traunfeld ably depicts the strands of darkness and romance that often weave through adult fantasy. Saiden keeps track of her kills by getting leaves tattooed on her arms, and she always manages to cause more collateral damage than Nakti would like. Loralei, meanwhile, has taken her serving girl, Cara, as her lover, a secret that threatens to bring further turmoil to the country. The narrative shifts among Saiden’s, Mozare’s, and Loralei’s perspectives, with the latter bolstering the tale’s sensuality; in one scene, the queen “watched Saiden pick an orange off the tray, peel it slowly and savor each slice of the fruit.” Some plot components click readily into place, like the identity of an imprisoned woman, and well-executed twists abound in the second half, adding deep emotional shading to the small cast. Traunfeld’s finale reveals bleak terrain ahead in installments to come.
This grim, passionate tale will scorch readers.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781958607183
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Inimitable Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.
The third installment of this fantasy series (The Bone Season, 2013; The Mime Order, 2015) expands the reaches of the fight against Scion far beyond London.
Paige Mahoney, though only 19, serves as the Underqueen of the Mime Order. She's the leader of the Unnatural community in London, a city serving under the ever more militaristic Scion, whose government is based on ridding the streets of "enemy" clairvoyants. But Paige knows the truth about Scion's roots—that an Unnatural and immortal race called the Rephaim, who come from the Netherworld, forced Scion into existence to gain control over the growing human clairvoyant community. Scion’s hatred of clairvoyants now runs so deep that Paige is forced to consider moving her entire syndicate into hiding while she aims to stop Scion's next attack: there are rumors that Senshield, a scanner able to detect certain levels of clairvoyance, is going portable. Which means no Unnatural citizen is safe—their safe houses, their back-alley routes, are all at risk of detection. Paige’s main enemy this time around is Hildred Vance, mastermind of Scion’s military branch, ScionIDE. Vance creates terror by anticipating her opponent’s next moves, so with each step that Paige and her team take to dismantle Senshield, Vance is hovering nearby to toy with Paige’s will. Luckily, Paige is never separated for long from her Rephaite ally, Warden, as his presence is grounding. But their growing relationship, strengthened by their connection to the spirit world, takes a back seat to the constant, fast-paced action. The mesmerizing qualities of this series—insight into the different orders of clairvoyance as well as the intricately imagined details of Paige’s “dreamwalking” gift, with which she is able to enter others’ minds—fade to the background as this seven-part series climbs to its highest point of tension. Shannon’s world begins to feel more generically dystopian, but as Paige fights to locate and understand the spiritual energy powering Senshield, it is never less than captivating.
A tantalizing, otherworldy adventure with imagination that burns like fire.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63286-624-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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