FORMAT/INFO: Green & Deadly Things was published on March 3rd, 2026 by Tor Books. It is 368 pages long and available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: In days of old, the Grim Lords ruled the land, nearly destroying their world with their dark necromantic powers. Although the Grim Lords have faded into legend, remnants of their magic remain, and the Idallik Knights exist to destroy that power wherever it lingers. But when a new threat faces the kingdom, novitiate Mathaiik wakes a Grim Lord in a desperate gambit to save the fortress where he trains. But waking Kaiataris reveals even more problems. This land is trapped in a cycle of raising chaos and order - and if Mathaiik and Kaiataris can't work to find a way to balance those forces, life across the continent will be wiped out.

Green & Deadly Things is a cinematic thrill ride that lacks fully developed characters to back it up. On the plus side, I can fully see the movie version of this book. There's a creepy plant enemy, an order of knights that uses elemental magic, and a whole lot of great action scenes. The author knows how to keep the plot moving, zipping you from one end of the country to the other as our heroes try to find a way to deal with the multiple threats facing the nation.

But with the snappiness of an action film comes the flimsiness of action characters. Most people you encounter along the journey are fairly flat, reduced to one or two traits. There's no real depth or history for most people outside the two main characters, and even they are fairly thin. The main villain is just out to rule the world; even with the stakes as high as the end of all life, I found myself simply not caring by the end of the book. The stakes just weren't personal enough. Even the romance felt by the numbers at best.

Green & Deadly Things is a great book for those who want a plot driven adventure. If you want to dash about a magical world from fight scene to chase sequence to fight scene, this will fit the ticket nicely. As someone who values characters over plot, I struggled a bit with this one, even though I've enjoyed the author's past works immensely. At the end of the day, this feels like a movie script adapted to book instead of the other way around, and as much as I enjoy a popcorn flick, this just didn't quite work for me as much as I'd hoped.