A fresh and intriguing fantasy escapade.
In Lücke’s debut fantasy novel, a guilt-ridden young protagonist hunts for his grandmother’s murderer—and becomes enmeshed in a magical world in the midst of a rebellion.
Jean Anderson is murdered by a mysterious stranger wearing chain mail who then disappears. Her grandson, Tom Anderson, witnessed her death as a child; for the next 11 years, he ponders strange, written clues in a book she left him, learning the magical “Bookish” language to help decipher them. Then, Tom sees someone who looks like his grandmother “six times counting today. Her or her ghost. Always from a distance.” When another strange old woman gives him magical artifacts, “the eyes of lost souls,” he leaves the reality he knows and enters a realm called Enthilen, where he’s saved by Grin, a creature called a “stone-grell,” who becomes his fast friend. As Tom searches for his grandmother, whom he believes is still alive, he gets involved with the world’s Dobunni rebels, who seek freedom from the oppressive Erstürmen rulers. He’s soon pursued by Eroberung, a “tainted grell” working for exiled ruler Malphas, who’s scheming for power over Enthilen via complicated machinations behind the scenes. Meanwhile, Tom and Grin ride to the port city of Laodicea to confront Jean’s killer. Lücke effectively ends the novel on a sequel-ready cliffhanger as Grin aims to rescue Tom but finds himself outmaneuvered. Over the course of this book, the author introduces an array of memorable characters; indeed, there are so many different players that readers may find it difficult to keep track of them all. This has the effect of making the narrative feel overstuffed at times. The prose style is occasionally stilted, as well: “maybe he found greater joy in the willing acquiescence of affection than non-consensual conquest.” That said, many fantasy aficionados will still find themselves engrossed in the story from beginning to end.
A fresh and intriguing fantasy escapade.Pub Date: July 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-648-82070-3
Page Count: 440
Publisher: With Distinction Consultants
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
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