A thought-provoking metaphysical adventure.
In Goldie’s novel, a young woman embarks on a mysterious journey that may have world-changing consequences.
While burying her beloved cat, Maya Burke unearths a journal containing mysterious messages from her long-missing father, Ben Ambrose. His writings warn her of “a global change…of such magnitude that every human system—nations, governments, cultures—will be transformed. Societies will be rocked…But this is not what you may think, Maya. The change will be internal. It will come from the inside of man, not from without.” She sets out to find her father and the answers to the questions his warning raised. Along the way, she meets various people who knew (or knew of) Ben and slowly introduce her to a new way of thinking. Maya learns to identify “energy vortex[es]” that help her channel her strange visions; meets a man who explains the metaphysics behind cultural change; and speaks with a woman who used the collective unconscious to help transform the medical field through mind-body healing. Meanwhile, a mysterious group known as the Mandala has its own agenda for the upcoming global changes—and Maya just may be the missing piece of the puzzle. Goldie crafts a compelling, trippy story that could stand on its own as a “young woman finding herself” narrative—it just so happens to also tackle heady topics like the nature of space, time, and the unconscious energy that flows through all of humanity. The author mostly avoids proselytizing to his audience, instead doling out bits and pieces of his theories in the course of a genuinely good mystery. While some moments come across as a bit trite (such as when a young boy suddenly “glimpses new worlds within his reach”), the prose remains clear and accessible. The book ultimately provides a plethora of intriguing ideas through which readers can parse, even if they don’t completely buy into Goldie’s philosophies.
A thought-provoking metaphysical adventure.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2014
ISBN: 9781493625239
Page Count: 308
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
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
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
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