A lightweight and playfully swift adventure set in a famous realm of magic and royalty.
Murray and Fahrie deliver the latest novella in their supernatural series featuring a shape-shifting time traveler from the present day.
In a previous installment, Lucy and James traveled from September 2018 to the days of King Arthur’s court. As this book opens, it’s September 518, and the two find themselves among such famous names as Merlin and Lancelot. Jousting tournaments and dinners with plenty of wine make for an entertaining existence for the pair; Merlin even has a sassy parrot who points to such things as how “James still misses his mother very much.” The idyll ends, however, when it becomes apparent that murderous vampires are on the loose in Camelot. The problem is so acute that Lucy even finds one under her bed. Luckily, James is a shape-shifter who’s able to change into a wolf whenever the need arises; not only does he save Lucy and himself from an intruding vampire, but he also rescues Queen Guenevere from an attempted kidnapping. Amid the hubbub, there’s an illicit relationship between Guenevere and Lancelot, which goes against her wedding vows. She tells Lucy that she knows that she must break things off, but she feels passion for the knight that she sometimes finds herself “unable to control.” Many other women at court find Lancelot equally attractive; indeed, it appears that a commoner named Roxanne may have killed herself because he didn’t reciprocate her advances. And if that weren’t enough, there are still all those vampires to deal with.
Murray and Fahrie present a densely packed tale in this series entry, but it’s one that moves quickly. As the entire novella is less than 100 pages long, no individual scene lasts for very long, and many chapters are dominated by action. In one notable scene, Lancelot gets punched in the face at dinner; another features two characters being forced to dance in a vampire castle, as villains chant “Dance or Die!” However, the dialogue is frequently on the nose, with characters stating how they are feeling instead of showing it through action: One character remarks after swimming in a mineral spring, “That was a delightful swim. I feel much more relaxed now”; during an attack, someone unnecessarily exclaims “We are being attacked! Kill them before they kill us.” Even Lancelot takes an opportunity to bluntly explain his actions: “I’m very much my own man and I often go away on adventures all by myself.” The earnestness of everyone involved doesn’t make for the most mysterious atmosphere, but it does result in entertainment. The fact that the monstrous vampires laugh and clap gives them an unexpectedly humorous bent, and during a confrontation with bats, Merlin uses owls in an endearingly cartoonish scene: one bird “quickly ate the entire bat whole.” Some aspects of the story are predictable, but there is always something new developing around the corner, and it may well come with a touch of silliness.
A lightweight and playfully swift adventure set in a famous realm of magic and royalty.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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