A measured but ravishing supernatural tale overflowing with monsters and robust characters.
A kingdom’s populous seaport becomes a hub of violence in this dark fantasy debut.
After someone murders his wife and son, Dacian metes out swift vengeance. But as the killer he assassinates turns out to be the duke’s son, Dacian hides out in Sarsini, the largest port city in the Sarsinian Kingdom. Among the nearly million citizens are his new friend Panos, a former Kingdom officer, who has laid low ever since witnessing his fellow legionnaires’ horrific deaths, and Kratos, who, on the duke’s behalf, leads the hunt for Dacian. These humans are largely oblivious to the immortal “Ascendant of Shadow,” who drifts from place to place as an “essence” and sways certain mortals to his will. As if Sarsini weren’t a busy enough seaport, one individual uses mysterious stones to open a portal, through which vicious creatures pass. These beasts—“all claws and teeth and insatiable hunger”—attack humans, forcing Panos and others to defend themselves in dangerous battles. De Villiers Graaff deftly packs this epic fantasy with a well-rounded cast and myriad subplots. The author’s regular updates on the various locales (including other Kingdom cities) and changing years (primarily flashbacks) keep the story lucid. But new characters randomly pop up throughout the series opener. De Villiers Graaff doesn’t skimp on developing each one, making for a leisurely paced tale and prompting narrative stretches without Dacian or Panos. On the plus side, it’s all the more startling when these well-defined individuals suddenly die or commit heinous deeds. They’re all immersed in a sublimely detailed atmosphere that rarely lets up—featuring the ever-present Ascendants (though all are not evil), the creatures’ unpredictable and bloody assaults, and rain perpetually showering the land. The ending, following a hectic final act, leaves copious avenues wide open for the sequel to explore.
A measured but ravishing supernatural tale overflowing with monsters and robust characters.Pub Date: April 28, 2023
ISBN: 9798391745457
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 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
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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