A thoroughly absorbing fantasy sequel about gods and mortals fighting the forces of darkness.
The second volume in a fantasy series about reincarnated lovers.
Ravi’s follow-up to her debut novel, The Heartless Divine(2019), reintroduces readers to her fictional world infused with Indian mythology and the rhythms of urban fantasy. This book continues the story of the godling Kiran and his young female human lover, Suri, whose hearts were bound together centuries before in earlier lives that only one of them remembers in detail. As in the first novel, this sequel shifts points of view and also time periods as it chronicles the further adventures of Suri, her mortal friends, Kiran, some newly introduced members of Kiran’s extended godly family, and a group of new and old villains, including the forbidding thuranaiand “Athrasakhi of Thyva, god of wrath and war and the flame of the devourer.” These villains are often melodramatically evil, but even at their worst, they’re kept believably busy scheming and striking when least expected. Ravi’s various supporting characters (including a scene-stealing pair named Viro and Tarak) get ample airtime in these pages, and readers of the first book will be pleased at how extensively Kiran’s personal history is fleshed out; he’s given a lovingly detailed backstory. The plot swings from explorations of Kiran and Suri’s relationship in the present to the unfolding of their stories in the past, with the forces aligned against Kiran and the rest of the gods steadily gaining potency until the climactic confrontation.
Ravi writes this complex tale with an arresting amount of skill and confidence. The book is very much a sequel; readers are advised to take in the first volume before moving on to this one. And the novel’s language, lovely and often sharp, doesn’t always manage to walk the fine line between evocative (“There was too much blood between them, even now. Dead cities and saints, flames of wrath and love, every bloody desert and luminous palace of heaven. Every word out of his mouth sepulchered”) and slightly purple (“Relief and vindication warred inside her”). But the supernatural world overlaying the mundane in these pages is lovingly crafted, and elements drawn from ancient mythology and modern fantasy tropes are smoothly blended. Ravi’s penchant for commenting on her own magical world (“Spellwriters were rare enough; passionate mortals who threw themselves into the dark weft of magic and let it close over their heads. It was a legacy of power and youth and hubris”) consistently lends it a verisimilitude that makes this particularly involving reading. Kiran is unquestionably the star of this sequel; readers hungry for more of the Kiran-Suri chemistry that floated The Heartless Divinemay be a bit disappointed at what sometimes feels like a lack of balance. But Ravi is such a compelling writer, with such a sure hand for both dialogue and especially dramatic pacing, that these minor imbalances aren’t major concerns. The characters are so well rounded and individualized that all the book’s dramatic stresses land perfectly.
A thoroughly absorbing fantasy sequel about gods and mortals fighting the forces of darkness.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 979-8-75089-061-3
Page Count: 271
Publisher: manuscript
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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