An epic saga that brings its mythology to life with inventive creatures and meticulous worldbuilding.
In Stead’s fantasy novel, a grizzled wolf god still tortured by his past bloody deeds is called back to battle when war grips the land once again.
This first book in The Sparrow and the Wolf series introduces Narak as the ferocious, magnetic god of wolves, one of five “lords of each realm” created by the god of the underworld himself, Pelion. Since helping the land of Afael win the Great War against the Seth Yarra, a religious group that rejects the ancient Gods and desires to rebuild the world “in the image of their own land,” Narak has become a recluse. But he is forced out of retirement by news that the Seth Yarra plan to return in order to finish what they started. Pelion has pledged to help defend Afael by sending a group of creatures called the Bren (“There were many kinds, and all quite different from each other”), but they will not arrive for another year and a half. Until then, it is up to Narak and his allies—including the reluctant Pascha, a formidable god known as The Lady of Sparrows who rejects her own powers—to hold off the Seth Yarra by whatever bloody means necessary. Stead has crafted a fully realized, intricately detailed world. The text’s copious use of unique terminology (there is no glossary provided) and hefty 800-page length may prove overwhelming to fantasy newcomers. But those willing to dive in will be well rewarded with a rich backstory that weaves together religion, politics, and an army of “insect-like” creatures that are vaguely reminiscent of the aliens in Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (1985). Stead deftly balances the dryness of political scheming with plenty of action (“They roared back at him, swords waving in the sunlight, a forest of righteous death waiting to close about the enemy”), delivering a nuanced fantasy that proves both exciting and thought-provoking.
An epic saga that brings its mythology to life with inventive creatures and meticulous worldbuilding.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2014
ISBN: 9781500946432
Page Count: 546
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2025
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
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
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