With a more coherent perspective, this sequel offers a smoother entry into a bewitching but difficult story.
An intriguing character narrates her side of a complex story in Chan’s fantasy sequel.
Readers familiar with the fantastical world of Kaef’re (which resembles ancient China), first introduced in the author’s previous novel Blackcloak: A Man of his Sword(2015), will find the onslaught of confusion and excitement familiar as this installment starts out with the fractured identities of the protagonist fighting each other. (“I, we. We…I’ve just learned to share with myself,” says the narrator as he violently grapples with the aftermath of the first book’s story.) This time around, the focus is on Charan’s sister Sariana Jaydemyr, who is ready to recount the details of her life and the long voyages through different realities, memories, and battles that brought her to Charan. Told from her perspective, Sariana’s tale begins in a village where she was known as Sarah-Jade Falkenstrom, the daughter of a self-centered and abusive lounge singer named Chantal. After being abandoned by Chantal’s husband, the mother and daughter move to Teristra, where the outbreak of war leads Sarah-Jade to hide in an Abbey. There, the same Dreamsong magic that fractured Charan’s identity in the first book also leaves Sarah-Jade—now called Sariana—with multiple memories and identities. (“Who am I supposed to be, and what will happen if I reveal the truth?”) Sariana hides behind multiple false identities within the Abbey, training as a Sister of the Liquid Night before emerging into the world armed with a vision of the apocalypse and a signature weapon called the Gildenhammer. Sariana ventures from there to the city of Kaifeng, where her brother is only beginning to understand their shared history—and where the same political intrigue and fighting of the first novel await them both. As Sariana’s twisted story starts to catch up with the present day, both siblings also move closer to new, shocking revelations.
Compared to the first outing in Chan’s fantastical world, this entry gives readers a bit more to hold onto as Sariana’s first-person narration anchors all of the magical interventions with a single point of view. “I grew up in the memory of a shadow of a fantasy, unable to live up to any of it,” Sariana explains to her brother (and to readers) while showcasing the poetic turns of phrase that made Chan’s first book distinctive. However, there is still a mountain of dense mythology and worldbuilding to climb. Readers can easily get lost in the vast lists of characters and competing factions—those feeling completely overwhelmed may do well to start at the end of the book, where the author has wisely provided a detailed chronological timeline mapping the major events of both novels. (Spoilers abound here, of course, but for many they may be worth the relative clarity.) Chan’s powerful prose still pierces through the fog of his unwieldy mythology—the horrific abuse Sariana/Sarah-Jade suffers while also struggling to understand her egotistical mother is chilling. Readers willing to put in the work to understand what’s going on will be rewarded with Chan’s big ideas and even sharper writing than in the original.
With a more coherent perspective, this sequel offers a smoother entry into a bewitching but difficult story.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780994285232
Page Count: 488
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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
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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