Fights, schemes, snappy dialogue, and some genuinely touching moments make this series continue to shine.
Three years after the events in the previous volume of this martial arts fantasy series (The Art of Prophecy, 2022), the paths of three foes diverge.
As the Zhuun empire approaches civil war, the fighting skills of the empire’s Prophesied Hero, Wen Jian, are improving. He’s still not ready to fight the Eternal Khan, but that’s fine for now, because the Khan hasn’t been reincarnated yet. However, there’s still an enormous bounty on his head, and the religion that anointed him a hero now dubs him a villain for not having killed the previous Khan. The Khan can’t reincarnate until one of his inner circle, Salminde the Viperstrike, submits herself to a ritual death and frees the portion of the Khan’s soul trapped and rotting within her. While Salminde seeks a way to cure herself and prevent the birth of a new Khan, the sociopathic assassin Maza Qisami is desperate for a way out of her own troubles. Having lost considerable status and money for failing to kill Wen Jian, she accepts a new assignment that just might get her back on track—unless she gets too comfortable in her cover as a ducal servant and/or entirely fails to notice that someone is planning to double-cross her (the reader will figure out most of what’s going on long before poor Qisami does). This story continues Wen Jian’s personal journey from rash, naïve spoiled brat to perhaps, eventually, a true martial artist, while vigorously introducing new characters and new plotlines. It is also genuinely interesting to watch Qisami begin to question her previously ruthless ways and confront the consequences of her behavior, and to see both her and Salminde struggle to seize a purpose and a place to belong that represent more than the next great fight against an enemy. As a result, this is a fun and fascinating book in its own right, and not a mere setup for the final installment in the trilogy.
Fights, schemes, snappy dialogue, and some genuinely touching moments make this series continue to shine.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780593237663
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
