A surprisingly successful merger of history and fantasy.
Set on and off the battlefields of Belgium in the final year of World War I, this novel adds a supernatural touch to its vividly realized historical details.
Arden moves on from her fantasies set in medieval Russia—The Bear and the Nightingale (2017) is the first in the trilogy—to a more realistic and often grueling depiction of the horrors of war. In January 1918, 24-year-old combat nurse Laura Iven has been sent home from Flanders to Halifax, Nova Scotia, after receiving serious wounds. When she’s notified that her younger brother, Freddie, who’s serving in Belgium, is missing and presumed dead, she becomes convinced he’s still alive and heads off to search for him. In an alternating timeline that begins several months earlier on the front lines, Freddie finds himself buried underground in a concrete German pillbox, his only companion the wounded German soldier Hans Winter. The two form a strong bond and eventually dig their way out, only to be confronted by more mud, blood, and death. Freddie, ashamed of his feelings for Winter and what he sees as his betrayal of his country, takes what seems like refuge with the mysterious fiddler Faland, who shows the guests at his glimmering hotel a mirror that reveals their hearts’ desires and then steals their memories to make his music. As the novel proceeds, the two storylines merge, with Laura attempting to save Freddie before it’s too late. Arden titles her chapters with quotations from Paradise Lost and the biblical Book of Revelation, and appropriately so: The landscape, both physical and spiritual, that the characters navigate is hellish, and for better or worse, their old world is being transformed into a new one. Unabashedly grim though laced with faint hints of hope, the novel immerses the reader in a war often overshadowed by the one that would follow a couple of decades later.
A surprisingly successful merger of history and fantasy.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593128251
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 engrossing, action-packed sequel with a compelling cast.
A woman must undergo fearsome trials to free the imprisoned Titans of Greek myth in Owen’s fantasy novel, the second in a series.
Advancing from minor office clerk in the Order of Thieves to Queen of the Underworld, Lyra Keres’ star should be rising. But thanks to Cronos, King of the Titans, she and her longtime friend and fellow thief Boone have been ensnared in a new challenge beneath the earth: Hot on the heels of winning the twisted Crucible Games, Lyra—who has recently been granted goddess powers—finds herself trapped in Tartarus. Separated from her beloved Hades, she must liberate the fearsome Titans from seven Locks to restore the cosmic balance. As Lyra progresses through the Locks engineered by the Gods—each as tricky and lethal as the last—the pressure mounts as the Titans repeatedly remind her, “You will be our savior.” Rhea, the wife of Cronos, reveals that Lyra began this quest “a hundred and fifty years ago,” adding further devastation to the task at hand; the knowledge is helpful, but also painful, as Lyra reflects, “Suddenly, I don’t want to know that it’s real. Because then I have to contemplate how many times I might have ended up in Tartarus already.” As she materializes in and out of time pockets, Lyra sees Hades’ troubled childhood unfold and struggles not to intervene to save the man she loves. In this second entry in the author’s Crucible series, following The Games Gods Play (2024), Lyra’s cynical quips continue to make her an engaging protagonist. Her inner monologues are balanced with hope, love, and longing for Hades as she meets various versions of him. While resilient, Owen’s heroine is also vulnerable (“Was I his pawn in more ways than I ever realized?”). Her introspection effectively contrasts with the simmering rage and restraint in Hades’ chapters. The supporting Titans are given more depth than the traditional myths allow, weaving a knotty family fabric for the reader to navigate alongside Lyra.
An engrossing, action-packed sequel with a compelling cast.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781649378538
Page Count: 500
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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