A profoundly felt story, unfortunately conveyed in somewhat stilted prose.
In the first of a series, a young woman with a deadly magical power chooses family, safety, and pragmatism over national loyalty.
Yang Ruying has been “blessed by Death”: She has the power to steal the life force from those she touches, although she pays a physical price for using her power. But the magical gifts she shares with some of her countrymen were not enough to protect the Empire of Er-Lang (which resembles a part of China) from occupiers traveling from another universe, where Rome never fell but developed high-tech weaponry and medicine over the centuries. A rash theft brings Ruying to the attention of the youngest Roman prince, Antony Augustus, who coerces Ruying into becoming his personal assassin. Antony claims that her killings on his behalf will ensure peace and a future for both their worlds. Ruying’s need to keep her grandmother, her rebellion-minded twin sister, and herself safe, plus her growing feelings for Antony, help to quiet her doubts, even as her guilt for the blood on her hands increases. Inspired by the Russian and Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the novel is an interesting look inside the mind of a collaborator; while Ruying hates the occupiers, she simply does not believe the rebel forces led by the mysterious Phantom have the power to defeat the Romans, and prefers to snatch what security she can in a bloody, desperate world. As a result, she works very hard to try not to think about what is happening to her people—especially those with magic. Readers may find the writing somewhat heavy going; the author is striving for a poetic style that doesn’t entirely land. For example, a distraught Ruying thinks, “A part of me that I couldn’t bandage or balm fissured slowly like thin ice cracking under weight, and the frigid blue waters beneath waited eagerly to drown me in their bitter depths.” The author also spends a great deal of time describing Ruying’s feelings—time that might be more effectively spent showing her actions as Antony’s assassin, which are more summarized than described in any detail.
A profoundly felt story, unfortunately conveyed in somewhat stilted prose.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780593722244
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
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.
