A great start to a fantasy duology featuring well-developed characters and settings.
The fates of a warrior princess and a royal guard entangle in Solomon’s series-starting romantic fantasy novel.
Cecelia is eldest child of King Filip of the Archipelago of the Moons and the presumed heir to the kingdom, despite that fact that her mother is not the queen. She always felt like an outsider in her own family, especially as she doesn’t know the truth regarding her late mother’s identity. She was brought up to be a fierce warrior and a brilliant strategist, so when her father, who has visions, tells her to travel with her brother to the kingdom of Korith to investigate a looming threat, she accepts her mission—even when he tells her she’ll likely never return home. Viktor is the kinsguard of Korith’s young monarch, and a remarkably skilled fighter who’s killed many men during his service. He’s assigned the role of bodyguard to visiting princess Cecelia and her young sibling. Viktor’s frustration increases when he becomes romantically infatuated with Cecelia. Despite their mutual attraction, the pair find themselves unwillingly thrown together by an arranged marriageand caught in the middle of a chaotic political plot and popular rebellion. As their newly formed bond is tested, Cecelia and Viktor come to realize there are plenty of secrets hidden in Korith’s history. Solomon’s first entry in the Dual Moons duology features chapters that focus alternately on Cecelia and Viktor, which is an effective narrative strategy. They ably introduce the two complex main characters as they both struggle with questions of identity and duty, as well as their romantic feelings for each other: “Fragile hearts…need tender care,” Cecelia whispers to Viktor at one point. “Your loneliness can keep mine company.” Their love story builds in an intricately developed fictional world; the story delves into religion and politics, examining the oppression of a people and the lengths to which people will go to gain power. The author also makes the intriguing choice to separate the characters with two road trips to explore the internal dynamics of a frayed kingdom.
A great start to a fantasy duology featuring well-developed characters and settings.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 979-8987942017
Page Count: 434
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2023
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
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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