A must-read if there ever was one.
After the bloody finale of Long Live Evil (2024), Rachel Parilla must set Key’s story to rights before she can go back to her own life.
Rae—or, as she’s known to the people of Eyam, Lady Rahela Domitia—has failed in her mission to steal the Flower of Life and Death, which she was promised would cure her “true” body of cancer. Her patchy memory of the fantasy series into which a mysterious stranger offered her escape helped her play the part of a mystic prophet to great success. But she forgot how her favorite character, the villainous Emperor, got that title in the first place. And now her beloved guard, Key, has returned from a violent death and claimed his power as a god-ruler at the wrong moment—before he can learn kindness and mercy from the rightful heroine. Rahela, the sexy villainess who died early in the books before Rae took over her part, betrayed Key at the moment of his death, lost the Flower of Life and Death, and, worst of all, fears that she’s destroyed Key’s chance at his happy ending. As if the loss of Rae’s path home weren’t bad enough, she’s certain she’ll lose her life in Eyam, too; Key claims he wants to marry her and make her his evil queen, but Rae knows from the books about the Emperor’s vengeance toward those who wronged him, and she knows she needs to move fast before she gets her heart ripped out—literally. Brennan’s fantastic sequel deepens and complicates themes from the first book, with explorations of the way ill and disabled people are treated by society, who is deemed worthy of love in fiction, and what it means to mark someone as a hero or villain. The world of Eyam is a loving homage to fantasy romance all the way down to the purple prose—which, in Brennan’s hands, makes any other style of writing seem dull gray by comparison. Between the brilliant character work, thrilling adventure sequences, devious political intrigue among the ministers of Eyam, and laugh-out-loud humor, it’s hard to imagine anyone not enjoying this series.
A must-read if there ever was one.Pub Date: May 12, 2026
ISBN: 9780316568746
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Orbit
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2026
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
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
