This lengthy, measured, and character-driven tale of magic kicks off what promises to be an engrossing saga.
In Lejeune’s debut fantasy novel and series launch, a teen mage hides in a bustling city to safeguard a parchment that holds potentially deadly secrets.
Summer Fontenay, who has just graduated from the Imperial College of Magic, contemplates her future. Her life takes an unexpected detour when she finds the Master Reader, whom she’s been assisting, on the verge of death; he hands her a parchment he’s been translating and, with his final words, tells her to take it to the city of Torrick. She’s to deliver it to the only scholar the Master Reader trusts, but he’s not an easy man to track down. The enigmatic manuscript now in Summer’s possession contains “terrible knowledge” that many people crave, and it’s not long before some interested parties are hunting her to get their hands on the parchment (she also happens to be a murder suspect in the Master reader’s death). Around the same time, 17-year-old mage-to-be Cole Culhane is studying in Torrick. When he surmises that a skilled thief has stolen his books, which he can’t afford to replace, Cole winds up entangled with a group of criminals who are, unsurprisingly, not very trustworthy. His path ultimately crosses with Summer’s, along with those of several others determined to secure the parchment. All the while, Summer struggles to keep her head down, whether among the temples and towers of Torrick’s Upper City or navigating the crowded marketplace in the Lower City.
Lejeune’s impressive worldbuilding introduces myriad characters in an expansive Empire, although the story predominantly sticks to a few cities. The cast includes several standouts who garner the spotlight, like Summer’s fellow graduate Fenya, who’s looking for Summer at the behest of the Wizarding Guild, and Deputy Marshal Arlen, who investigates a fatal drowning and probable murder. All of these plot strands, like Summer’s and Cole’s, intersect in some capacity before this opening series installment is over. Throughout, magic is sublimely incorporated into the narrative without overwhelming it: Some try persuading others through enchantments or hide things with charms; there are “linked” mirrors for instant transportation; and Fenya uses a hex to bully Summer back at school. The author jam-packs the novel with subplots—many spin off into additional subplots. While these secondary stories are absorbing in their own right (such as Cole’s curious encounter with “the River Lady”), they also have the tendency to, at least temporarily, sideline the more essential elements, like Summer finding the scholar or Cole recovering his books. All of the colorful individuals gathered prompt dialogue-laden scenes, but it’s Lejeune’s sharp details that shine brightest: “Men in robes stood about talking in low voices… The large table had been cleared and a great map of the city laid out. [Chief clerk] Olmo, old and stout, was busy explaining it to a gaggle of mages.” By the novel’s end, readers will have no trouble guessing the direction that the planned sequel will likely take.
This lengthy, measured, and character-driven tale of magic kicks off what promises to be an engrossing saga.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2023
ISBN: 9781739556402
Page Count: 728
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2024
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
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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