A vivid and haunting fantasy that involves a mysterious city.
The lives of a group of fighters, thieves, and sages converge in a land of intrigue and magic.
Lias is a man with a tragic past whose attempt at seeking a new life takes an unexpected detour. He’s a pit-fighter, and he and his twin brother were abandoned to the care of a pit-master who oversees hand-to-hand battles—sometimes to the death—on “the hard-packed earth” of a pit. When a new master wants him to fight his brother, Lias walks away and heads toward a monastery. He is captured by slavers along with a sage named Uril. After Uril’s death, an attack on the slavers gives Lias an opportunity to escape and find Uril’s family in Yut. In another part of Yut, an acolyte named Jyn prepares to meet his father, Magus Rhune. He travels with his teacher, Yu, to his father’s mansion; it seems that his father is seeking to extend his own life, and Jyn may be an important part of that quest. Ryll, a former thief, returns to Yut at the request of his former master, Anue, to retrieve a Heart-Stone, stolen by Cassi, Aune’s lover. While in Yut, Ryll recalls a journey with Cassi to the tower of a thaumaturgist, or magician, and the shocking discovery that continues to trouble him. Vincent’s fantasy weaves together three haunting tales of magic and mystery centered on Yut, a city full of secrets and surprises. Each tale has a protagonist embarking on a deeply and ultimately life-changing personal quest. Vincent is especially adept at creating compelling characters and vividly realized scenarios brimming with moments of intrigue and terror. One of the most dynamic and complex is Ryll, a skilled thief who leaves a life of deception for a simpler existence on a mountain with his wife, Myn. His past with Cassi and their dangerous journey to the thaumaturgist’s tower provide some of the narrative’s most intense and emotionally driven moments. Magic is a source of wonder and horror throughout the novel, particularly in Jyn’s story, where his father’s attempts at immortality include using people in his constructs.
A vivid and haunting fantasy that involves a mysterious city.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-949241-14-3
Page Count: 215
Publisher: Left Hand Publishers LLC
Review Posted Online: March 4, 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
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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