A lively sequel that deftly advances a remarkable dragon saga.
In this second installment of a fantasy series, an American civilian aids the military in battling a resilient and surprisingly keen dragon in the present day.
The Program, a covert United States organization, has been tracking and capturing or killing dragons for some time. But one dragon hiding out in New England is particularly smart, reacting to humans’ attacks strategically. It’s also powerful, as it breathes a destructive mix of fire and lightning. So Col. Richard Garfield seeks and coerces help from civilian Liam Tryggvison and retired military pilot Rob Grady. During one confrontation, these two men manage to defeat the dragon, even if only temporarily. They subsequently train with the colonel’s secret team for imminent combat with the winged reptile. The dragon, meanwhile, gradually regains its memories, recalling its former human life and dreaming of its father, who died long ago. Liam feels somewhat responsible for this dragon’s terrorizing humans, as he was the one who inadvertently awakened it from its slumber. But he soon believes he’s “connected” to it and begins to sympathize with a creature that merely yearns for solitude. Liam wants to help it—a sharp contrast to the Program’s lethal approach. Baird’s origin-establishing series opener paved the way for this action-laden sequel. There are copious military-versus-dragon encounters, which are often exhilarating and not especially violent despite multiple casualties. Consequently, the plot rarely slows down, as it entails dragon flight, pursuits, and assorted weapons. Readers will likely side with the dragon, which fights in self-defense and isn’t immune to pain and injuries. The creature’s implied link to equally sympathetic Liam is a carryover from the preceding novel. But their connection evolves in this story, which further introduces a new element: a strange woman belonging to what Liam calls a “dragon cult.”
A lively sequel that deftly advances a remarkable dragon saga. (author bio)Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-976902-01-7
Page Count: 267
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2020
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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