A fun, rousing quest tale with a compelling hero.
In this fantasy series opener, a student who seeks a scholarly life gets chosen for a dangerous mission.
Orion, 17, has studied at the Academy since he was a child and lost his parents. His best friend, Trey, is training to be a Kunsa, a guardian; his oldest pal, Arianna, is planning to be a priest; and Orion is preparing to be a “Chronicler,” someone who studies everything in the world. At the end of their time at the Academy, all of the students must try to pull a sword from an obelisk. A victorious student must leave on a quest for the False One. The False One tried to usurp the True God many centuries ago in an epic war and now it is up to the “Chosen One” to vanquish him. All of those selected have failed, and each time, the blade reappears in the stone, waiting for the next warrior. Everyone is surprised when Orion pulls the sword out and he is doubtful of the quest’s purpose as well as scared of dying. As he continues down the path the sword shows him, he enters a forest like the one his parents were killed in. While facing peril, he is rescued by a spirited young woman named Cassi. She’s lived in the forest her whole life but dreams of something more thrilling to fill her days. Now, she wants to join Orion, and he is happy to have the company, but his concerns about the False One make him worry for her safety. Sereda is a masterful storyteller who has crafted an exciting world with depth and complexity. The milieus of the Academy and the farms, forests, and cities beyond are captivating and create wonderful settings for Orion’s intriguing journey. Orion is a striking hero who is relatable in his self-doubt and fear of looming dangers (“He certainly did not feel honored to be chosen. He wondered if anyone else had felt like he did about being ‘the Chosen One.’ Had any of the previous Questers wished they could just put the sword back and pretend this never happened?”). This is a thoroughly enjoyable fantasy adventure with a gut-punch of an ending that will satisfy genre fans.
A fun, rousing quest tale with a compelling hero.Pub Date: June 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781039177895
Page Count: 282
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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