A thoughtful, erotic fantasy that asks readers to see the best in one another.
In Hartlove’s fantasy adventure, a blacksmith falls for a mermaid despite the town’s disapproval.
Sten Holdsmith is a blacksmith who recently moved to coastal Saint Rochel. He’s hoping to start fresh after a troubled past and is aware that the town barely tolerates the Merrow (mer-folk) who live in nearby waters. When Sten tries to teach himself to fish, he ends up overboard and tangled in fishing nets. Luckily, Chielle Mmava has been watching him. She brings Sten ashore, mends his nets, and is more polite than his neighbors would have him believe of the supposedly savage “fins.” She also has large aqua eyes that stir the blacksmith. He teaches her how to shape a metal bracelet without fire, a great favor since there are laws against commerce with the undersea village of Celidan. Merrow men, however, have been using dangerous lava vents to create spearheads. The weapons help defend the aquatic Harper’s Meadow from encroaching Saint Rochel fishermen. As confrontations erupt, Sten petitions the High Lordship Jesery Clune to ensure fairness and peace. This endears Chielle to him. They fall in love, but will their respective cultures force them apart? Hartlove explores unconventional romance and the process of cultural erasure in his fantasy novel. As a transplant to St. Rochel, Sten observes that the brown-skinned Indru—like his 14-year-old apprentice, Jacio—have adopted the clothing of the Whites who worship the deity Atlan. Deeper culture shocks occur when Sten shares wine with Chielle’s brother, Thymon, who offers lionfish venom to the human. The Merrow way of life is fleshed out through their coral homes, which take years to grow, and their worship of Rorra (the ocean). Sten and Chielle’s sex life, and their attempts to find compatibility, is explicitly depicted. Sten’s arc shows that individuals deserve opportunities to start over even if violence or racism taint their past. An intense finale provides both communities the chance to rise above the low roads of xenophobia and revenge.
A thoughtful, erotic fantasy that asks readers to see the best in one another.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-953469-10-6
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Water Dragon Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Let’s hope for more from the next book set in this world.
Sasha Cadell has survived against all odds, holding onto her loved ones and strangers as they take their last breaths—and that’s why she’s known as Death’s Angel.
For six years Sasha has lived in Haven, the underground society built to withstand nuclear war. Since the war, since her family’s deaths, since discovering she doesn’t get sick like everyone else does, Sasha’s life has been full of death and overfull with grief. While working in the Ward, Haven’s limited hospital, she stays with patients as they die. When Tristian Hayes, a unit commander of the Force, ends up as her patient, hanging on for his life, she pleads for him to stay alive. He does—upending her bleak ritual as Death’s Angel. Hoping to forget everything she’s seen and to numb the pain, Sasha leaves the Ward in favor of a role with a pickax, expanding Haven’s tunnels. Tristian, fiercely determined and stunningly stubborn, recruits Sasha to the Force for a vital mission aboveground. The story picks up steam with Sasha’s intense training to become the medic for Tristian’s tightknit unit. Together, they bear the weight of their unit’s survival and all that’s left of humankind. While in training, Sasha struggles to discern friends and enemies, but nothing is as challenging as facing her own demons. In this prequel to her debut novel, Conform (2025), Sullivan tries to accomplish a lot with both the worldbuilding and plot machinations, resulting in a convoluted story and flattened characters. The plot doesn’t have a satisfying payoff, but the romantic tension between Sasha and Tristian will keep readers engaged.
Let’s hope for more from the next book set in this world.Pub Date: March 24, 2026
ISBN: 9798217091027
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Standard-issue romantasy with a clever build toward a sequel.
A princess enters a neighboring kingdom’s contest to marry its prince, but she’s secretly on a spy mission to find a hidden weapon.
Aella is a princess in disguise. When she was a child, her father sent her away from the palace to be raised in the Aviary, a secret espionage/military organization within the kingdom of the Sorrows. Very few people in the Aviary know Aella’s true identity, so when she completes her training and is given her first mission, she can’t share with her friends just how well-suited she is for the job. Aella is to travel to the nation of Eretria for the “trials,” in which women compete for the prize of marrying Prince Keres. The others on the mission believe Aella will be in disguise as the Sorrows’ mysterious princess, who is never seen publicly, but of course Aella is really in disguise as herself. The Aviary wants Aella to win the trials and stay in Eretria as the queen, spending the rest of her life as a spy. The rest of her cohort is being sent to retrieve a mysterious weapon that Eretria has hidden somewhere in the palace. As if being in disguise twice over isn’t enough for Aella, she also has to navigate the surprisingly deadly trials themselves—as well as the growing certainty that marriage to Prince Keres might be a fate worse than death. If the layers of secrecy aren’t confusing, it’s because their primary purpose is to serve as fun romantasy tropes rather than a real plot. The same goes for the added layer of confusion when Aella and her friends receive new bird-themed names as members of the Aviary: Giving the heroine an extra name like “Starling” and a sexy love interest called “Raven” reads more like an aesthetic flourish than something truly necessary to Aella’s character arc. Still, the seasonally themed kingdoms and some later developments leading to the next installment are well done, and compared to many of her more purple colleagues, Otto is relatively restrained when it comes to melodramatic imagery.
Standard-issue romantasy with a clever build toward a sequel.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9798217153824
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dial Press
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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