A tightly plotted conspiracy novel that blends seamlessly with its superbly developed setting.
Two men starved for community and camaraderie fall into a multilayered conspiracy that offers both a shot at redemption.
The justice system acquitted Adrien Desfourneaux of witchcraft charges years ago. Back then, he worked as a doctor in a psychiatric facility where he pushed forward an experimental procedure that left all his test subjects dead or comatose. He gave up medicine and now works as a professor at the Pharmakeia, a magical college. These days, Adrien is more concerned about treating his own mental illness—dithymic akrasia—than healing others’ maladies. But when a curse with symptoms eerily similar to those his patients endured begins claiming both Pharmakeia students and soldiers of the Vigil—an organization whose sole responsibility is to police magically talented citizens—he feels compelled to launch his own investigation. Confronting the ghosts of his past throws the akratic professor into a mixed state just as the Vigil sends soldiers and witchfinders to the Pharmakeia to ferret out whatever witch or witches are responsible for the curse. One of those soldiers is Gennady Richter, a painfully awkward young man who trained with many of the victims in childhood and now believes his previous commanding officer may be involved in the conspiracy. Unfortunately, Gennady’s obliviousness to social cues leads directly to the two men’s deputization as Vigil spies—though Adrien’s support network believes the whole thing is a psychotic delusion. Nakamura’s treatment is nuanced and thoughtful, avoiding a veritable minefield of harmful stereotypes to deliver genuine characters with heart. This is a society that openly accepts queer people; Adrien is gay, as are the members of his network. Additionally, Adrien’s and Gennady’s conditions—coded as bipolar disorder and autism, respectively—are integral to the story.
A tightly plotted conspiracy novel that blends seamlessly with its superbly developed setting.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781939096128
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Canis Major Books/Red Hen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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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