An offbeat and engaging story of a mythical creature.
Modern New Englanders go up against an ancient, fire-breathing dragon in Baird’s debut fantasy series starter.
Tryggvi Brynjarson is a young Viking who loves to explore. While on the island of Vestmannaeyjar with his father and others, he goes off on his own and discovers a unique stone. He keeps the rock with him throughout his life, including during a grueling journey in search of new land; he eventually marries, and his wife has a child. Centuries later, Tryggvi is reborn as a dragon, which emerges from the stone that he’d discovered. The dragon is perfectly content to live alone in caves, but the humans that it periodically encounters are frightened of it and attack it with weapons. About 1,000 years later, in the modern day, 17-year-old New Hampshire native Liam Tryggvison visits his grandfather in Maine. While hiking in the forest, he’s excited to find a cave full of gold coins. But Liam also awakens the aforementioned dragon, from which he narrowly escapes. Once the dragon is outside and takes flight, it confronts aircraft and gunfire. Surprisingly, the winged creature then vanishes almost as quickly as it appeared. Liam, feeling guilt over how the dragon endangered people’s lives, is determined to track it down—although the beast may be ready to hunt. Much of Baird’s tale doesn’t feature the titular creature. The lengthy initial section, however, is utterly engrossing, as Tryggvi faces harsh cold at sea as well as land-based perils such as bears and wolves. The early part of the book also offers the perspective of the sympathetic dragon, who has hazy memories of its previous life and wants humans to leave it alone. The author’s straightforward prose clearly establishes the regularly changing settings and delineates the passage of time. Baird also delivers brisk action scenes, as when the dragon battles the aforementioned “metal birds” that are capable of hurting it. The ending offers resolution but also incentive for readers to check out the next published installment.
An offbeat and engaging story of a mythical creature.Pub Date: April 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5204-1250-4
Page Count: 273
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
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
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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