A quirky and queer urban fantasy homage to The Devil Wears Prada.
A young man stumbles into the world of witches after accepting a position working for a famous socialite in Napoli’s novel.
Twenty-three-year-old Clark (“like Kent”) Crane works a dead-end job at a local coffee shop to pay the bills after dropping out of college. A former English major, Clark lives alone in a tiny apartment in Queens. He lacks direction in his life (especially in his career) until a family friend inexplicably sets him up for a job interview to work for Charisma Saintly (whose name is clearly a direct reference to the character of Miranda Priestly from the film The Devil Wears Prada). Unbeknownst to Clark, Charisma is globally famous—and, incidentally, a witch. What exactly Charisma is famous for is lost on Clark and remains obscure for most of the novel; however, her notoriety has established her as a renowned taste-maker for celebrities and the otherwise wealthy. Clark’s interview with Charisma’s “fourth assistant,” Monica, does not go well from the start—Clark bumbles through her questions, caught off guard when Monica mentions Charisma’s coven and refers to witches. Regardless, he is offered a position. Things become stranger as he starts the job, where he is essentially the only man. One exception to this rule is the bartender at Charisma’s bar: Joey, a handsome Italian American from Brooklyn who immediately charms Clark, kicking off a whirlwind romance. As the overworked, unpaid, and completely unappreciated Clark complains to friends, many of them ask him why he puts up with such terrible treatment, which leads to the novel’s main flaw: Clark’s unclear motivation. Any time the question comes up, Clark responds with some unconvincing line about it being “a new opportunity… that could ‘open many doors.’” This is never really resolved, though an entity who appears later in Clark’s dreams indicates more may be revealed in later installments of the series. Despite this lack of characterization, Clark is a charming protagonist who is easy to root for.
A quirky and queer urban fantasy homage to The Devil Wears Prada.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781039469273
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Podium Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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