An often riveting yarn if you buy into the premise.
In the second of a series of fantasy thrillers that began with The Atlas Six (2022), new initiates of a secret magical society confront a web of dangerous conspiracies.
Atlas Blakely, Caretaker of the Alexandrian Society, collected his latest crop of initiates with the secret intention of using their magical talents to create a wormhole into the multiverse in search of a better world. His former ally, the time traveler Ezra Fowler, believes that Atlas’ quest will destroy their current world, and in an effort to stop him, he has kidnapped one of Atlas’ prospective initiates (and Ezra’s ex-girlfriend), Libby Rhodes, trapping her 30 years in the past. Meanwhile, the initiation ritual intended to unite the remaining group has only succeeded in driving the already contentious initiates further apart. As Ezra embarks on an uneasy alliance with the Society’s rivals and a furious Libby struggles for the knowledge and resources she needs to return to her present, the initiates pursue various arcane researches, try to understand why the library archives are denying them certain books, fight among themselves, and confront a number of threats from both inside and outside the Society headquarters. Although all of this sounds thrilling (and it is), the series is still primarily concerned with the interior of the characters’ heads (a situation complicated by the presence of two telepaths and an empath). These are broken, self-obsessed people who can’t stop either ruminating over their perceived flaws or pretending they aren’t there while simultaneously being annoyed by, poking at, and/or exploiting the flaws of their compatriots. The author highlights the dangerous selfishness of these behaviors with minor character Belen Jiménez, a Filipina undergraduate whom Libby meets and takes considerable advantage of in 1989 Los Angeles. Belen believes Libby (who’s supposed to be the most moral member of the Atlas Six) is a sympathetic friend who can boost her academic career; that misapprehension brutally alters the course of Belen’s life. The success of the book hinges on whether or not the reader finds these often unlikable protagonists sympathetic in spite of themselves, or at least interesting specimens of psychological damage.
An often riveting yarn if you buy into the premise.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-25-085509-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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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