A shrewd, absorbing fantasy showcasing extraordinary characters worth rooting for.
A teenager harboring potential magical powers vows to confront the red-eyed stranger who’s been haunting her in this debut YA novel.
Nyla’s unusual silver hair and purple eyes are indicative of someone with magical abilities. But she has none, her hair and eyes having changed colors after a fatal fire took her family two years ago. In fact, her home country of Tenebris somehow lost most of its magic centuries before. But there is a legendary waterfall that reputedly grants desires, and Nyla braves the treacherous Shadow Forest to find it and its good fortune. Along the way, she meets Xander, a fellow teen without a family. Their run-in with a hideous ogre in the forest—and its apparent, inexplicable death—leads both teens to suspect that Nyla has magical powers that she’s unaware of. Moreover, a man with scarlet-colored eyes and a crystal ball seizes her lucid dream-visions and seems intent on killing her. Answers regarding her magic’s source and this enigmatic villain may lie on the other side of Tenebris—in a creepy, abandoned manor from Nyla’s childhood. Shaffery wisely zeroes in on the sublime cast in this fantasy series opener. While individual backstories and the sinister presence targeting Nyla gradually come to light, the growing relationships truly drive the engrossing story. Nyla and Xander display genial natures that will quickly earn readers’ sympathies. Even when they annoy each other or occasionally fight, the two remain warmhearted, with Xander “just maybe a bit overconcerned” with Nyla’s well-being. They later team up with a supernatural ally whom they don’t immediately trust and spot other fantastical beings as well, including a fire-spitting “nocturnal creature” with “charcoal eyes” called a pyrosa. Though the memorable ending leaves paths for the sequel, this introductory tale illuminates much of the unraveling mystery and skillfully explores a fair amount of Tenebris’ relatively compact landscape.
A shrewd, absorbing fantasy showcasing extraordinary characters worth rooting for.Pub Date: June 3, 2022
ISBN: 9798986173207
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters.
Two young people save the world and all the magic in it in this series opener.
When tall, dark-haired, white-skinned Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in Scotland, he ventures to the top of a forbidden hill and discovers astonishing magical creatures. His grandfather explains that Christopher’s family are guardians of the “way through” to the Archipelago, where the Glimourie Tree grows—the source of glimourie, or the world’s magic. Black-haired, olive-skinned Mal Arvorian, a girl from the Archipelago, is being pursued by a murderer, and she asks Christopher for help, launching them both on a wild, dangerous journey to discover why the glimourie is disappearing and how to stop it. Together with a part-nereid woman, a ratatoska, a dragon, and a Berserker, they face an odyssey of dangerous tasks to find the Immortal, the only one who can reverse the draining of magic. Like Lyra and Will from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mal and Christopher sacrifice their innocence for experience, meeting every challenge with depthless courage until they finally reach the maze at the heart of it all. Rundell throws myriad obstacles in her characters’ way, but she gives them tools both tangible (a casapasaran, which always points the way home, and the glamry blade, which cuts through anything) and intangible (the desire “to protect something worth protecting” and an “insistence that the world is worth loving”). Final art not seen.
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593809860
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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