Striking characters, both divine and human, enliven this leisurely story of good versus evil.
In Rohla’s fantasy novel, a god born to grant wishes uses her power to help people who’ve lost hope.
Starfall is a sovereign city-state that rests between two desert plateaus and two kingdoms, making it a “hot spot for trade and commerce.” One day, its citizens’ collective wishes and dreams, quite astoundingly, give birth to a female god. She can hear all of their yearnings and quickly finds 19-year-old Ellie, whose longing is the loudest. The teen is skeptical but mentally expresses her desire for her sickly little brother Sterling to be well again—a wish the god grants. Ellie deems the god, whom she names Freya, a “miracle worker” and ambles through Starfall’s bazaar to track down others with wishes. Freya delights a few locals, including a seller who yearns for a more glamorous stall and Sterling’s doctor, who wants the perfect ring to propose with. It’s hardly surprising when the surrounding kingdoms send royal messengers to invite Freya to their respective nations, but the god prefers living quietly with Ellie and Sterling. Ellie, meanwhile, dreams up weekly “wish fairs” in which Freya grants a limited number of wishes via a lottery system, with the option of turning down anything inappropriate or potentially harmful. Sadly, there are slaves in Starfall, like all of the nurses at a hospital, whose wishes Freya can’t hear, rendering her unable to help them. When Freya realizes the city-state has far more slaves than most people can see, she, Ellie, and Sterling make it their mission to free these captives.
Rohla’s bare-bones prose streamlines the physical details of characters and settings; this approach keeps the narrative moving at a steady clip as it unfolds (for the most part) in Starfall. Descriptions of emotions and temperaments are also effectively concise (“Dread slides its serrated teeth along the back of the god’s neck”). At the same time, the main cast virtually bursts with personality and backstory—Ellie and Sterling’s mother abandoned them, forcing young Ellie to care for her ailing brother on her own. Freya displays several humanlike traits, starting with her naïveté; she has an innate ability to converse with locals but learns many things as she goes along, including social greetings and what a “concubine” is. She’s also not quite as powerful as readers may anticipate, as she can only utilize her amazing abilities (like materialization and teleportation) for so long before she needs rest. The story introduces a handful of curious moral dilemmas, from the horrid treatment enslaved people suffer to a consideration of what, exactly, a dying girl would wish for. As Freya, Ellie, and Sterling slowly gather allies, it’s the villains who truly stand out. Starfall’s sleazy Governor Hensley, for one, drapes himself in flashy garb and laughs obnoxiously loud, and a nefarious, well-organized gang steals water from the poor. These thieving gangsters, along with other diabolical sorts secretly up to no good, ignite the final act as the story builds to a gratifying denouement.
Striking characters, both divine and human, enliven this leisurely story of good versus evil.Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 979-8670287180
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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