A promising start for a planned fantasy series that capably handles both politics and magic.
A middle-grade fantasy adventure story about a gifted boy who trains to be a knight and gets entangled in a murder mystery.
Life is a series of toils for 12-year-old Xandon, an orphan and servant for a wealthy, cruel family in the kingdom of Avondale. His only respite is his warm relationship with animals, including a Berune tiger named Kumata, whose death opens the narrative. Shortly afterward, Xandon sees a wisp, a magical entity that’s said to be a spiritual messenger—and a bad omen for those who see it, and the young boy leaves his farm life behind to train in a guild as a knight, helping him avoid the new compulsory conscription laws passed by the power-hungry Prince Val Haruk. En route to his new life, he meets a young woman named Persephone whose mother, a powerful Archmage of the kingdom of Avondale, sponsored his entry into the guild. The pair become fast friends, and debut author Vonn Beck, in this series starter, uses their relationship to usher readers into the wider world and mythos he’s constructed, as Persephone explains elements of the kingdom and the way magic functions to Xandon, hinting that although the young boy may not be a mage, he’s most certainly “something” unusual. The account of Xandon’s training regimen goes on a bit too long and slows the narrative momentum. However, things pick up after a killing occurs in the guild hall, and the resulting mystery shifts the novel into an intriguing new register as Xandon becomes a suspect. Throughout, the protagonist is a likable character who seems ambitious, bright, and curious, and Vonn Beck unveils the wider political machinations at play in a deft and creative manner. When Xandon meets the wily Prince Val Haruk, who tries to draw the young man into his dark schemes, the story truly hits its stride. Taut action scenes, particularly toward the book’s climax, show off the author’s talent for depicting realistic combat without getting bogged down in clichés.
A promising start for a planned fantasy series that capably handles both politics and magic.Pub Date: July 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-7332735-4-1
Page Count: 446
Publisher: Redgate Publishing Guild LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.
A retelling of Pinocchio from Geppetto's point of view.
The novel purports to be the memoirs of Geppetto, a carpenter from the town of Collodi, written in the belly of a vast fish that has swallowed him. Fortunately for Geppetto, the fish has also engulfed a ship, and its supplies—fresh water, candles, hardtack, captain’s logbook, ink—are what keep the Swallowed Man going. (Collodi is, of course, the name of the author of the original Pinocchio.) A misfit whose loneliness is equaled only by his drive to make art, Geppetto scours his surroundings for supplies, crafting sculptures out of pieces of the ship’s wood, softened hardtack, mussel shells, and his own hair, half hoping and half fearing to create a companion once again that will come to life. He befriends a crab that lives all too briefly in his beard, then mourns when “she” dies. Alone in the dark, he broods over his past, reflecting on his strained relationship with his father and his harsh treatment of his own “son”—Pinocchio, the wooden puppet that somehow came to life. In true Carey fashion, the author illustrates the novel with his own images of his protagonist’s art: sketches of Pinocchio, of woodworking tools, of the women Geppetto loved; photos of driftwood, of tintypes, of a sculpted self-portrait with seaweed hair. For all its humor, the novel is dark and claustrophobic, and its true subject is the responsibilities of creators. Remembering the first time he heard of the sea monster that was to swallow him, Geppetto wonders if the monster is somehow connected to Pinocchio: “The unnatural child had so thrown the world off-balance that it must be righted at any cost, and perhaps the only thing with the power to right it was a gigantic sea monster, born—I began to suppose this—just after I cracked the world by making a wooden person.” Later, contemplating his self-portrait bust, Geppetto asks, “Monster of the deep. Am I, then, the monster? Do I nightmare myself?”
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-18887-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
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