Green & Deadly Things

by Jenn Lyons

For fans of S.A. Chakraborty, Robin Hobb, and Martha Wells's Witch King, a page-turning standalone fantasy of necromancy and magical mayhem from Jenn Lyons, the acclaimed author of The Ruin of Kings.

Centuries ago, necromancy almost destroyed the world. That’s how history remembers it.

History remembers it wrong.

Mathaiik has trained all his life to join the sacred order of the Idallik Knights, charged with defending their world from the forces of necromancy. Only vestiges of that cursed magic remain, nothing like the fabled days of the Grim Lords, the undead wizards who once nearly destroyed the world.

But when an even stranger kind of monster begins to wake, the Knights quickly prove powerless to stop them. Whole forests are coming alive and devouring anyone so foolish as to trespass, as if the land itself has turned upon humanity.

It’s a good thing, then, that the Grim Lords were never truly destroyed. One of their number sleeps below the Knights' very fortress. And when an army of twisted tree monsters attacks the young initiates in his charge, Math decides to do the unthinkable: he wakes her up.

This is only the beginning of his problems. Because said necromancer, Kaiataris, knows something history has forgotten. The threat of this wild magic is part of a cycle that has repeated countless times–life after death, chaos after order. And if she and Math can’t find a new way to balance the scales, this won't just be the end of the world as they know it, but the end of all life, everywhere.

Genres: Fantasy, Adult, Fiction, Adult Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

368 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication March 3, 2026

About the author

Jenn Lyons lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, three cats, and a lot of opinions on anything from the Sumerian creation myths to the correct way to make a martini. At various points in her life, she has wanted to be an archaeologist, anthropologist, architect, diamond cutter, fashion illustrator, graphic designer, or Batman. Turning from such obvious trades, she is now a video game producer by day, and spends her evenings writing science fiction and fantasy. When not writing, she can be founding debating the Oxford comma and Joss Whedon’s oeuvre at various local coffee shops.

Reviews

[takeeveryshot]

jenn i’m sorry i cannot follow you here but we will Always have horsegender the greatest fantasy series of the last 10 years

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lyons pens a stand alone fantasy about magic and necromancy, sure to delight fantasy fans! Mathaiik has been a novitiate much longer than most because he's unable to manifest his weapon. But he's also got a secret that would cause the Order alarm. But when they are attacked, he may be the only one who can help them.

This is only my second Lyons book, but I have the first of another series on my shelf. I loved the other one I read and didn't realize until then she's local! But I'm not sure about this one. It felt overly long and lacking in many side characters. I'm not sure if my problem was that I was reading this mostly just at the gym, so it was taking longer, but I didn't love this one.

[Tanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc of Green & Deadly Things!

Green & Deadly Things is an m/f fantasy romance with some open-door spice, featuring sentient and monstrous plants, magical bonding, ancient puzzles, and battles.

I adored the different magic systems and thought the world was really interesting. It's also clear that Jenn Lyons has a gift for writing fights and action scenes. And, I liked that there was some queer representation. The start of this book was really promising, and I was excited to see where the book would go.

However, as the book continued, I started to lose interest. I found the romance unconvincing, some of the "twists" that shocked the POV character felt obvious from a mile away, and while our main character Math is perfectly nice, I was more interested in the love interest's experiences.

For most of the book, the love interest Kaiataris is a far more complex, powerful, influential and unique character. However, we never get her POV, and she's also given some really outdated and stereotyped plotlines. She becomes the woman who begs her man not to go to war and, the first time they have sex, tells him birth control isn't an issue because she'd like to be pregnant to have something to remember him by if he dies , or she's kidnapped by the villain who wants to make her his partner in his evil plans and then the protagonist comes to the rescue. (And on that topic, for a book in which people of all genders are conscripted to be magical soldiers, why are the plot-relevant soldiers nearly all men? And the ones that are women mostly end up being relevant because they care for children or research things in the library.)

There was also potential for an interesting exploration of the negative elements of empire and military orders, but I feel that the book stopped short of really examining this. Although we saw some negative aspects, they felt like isolated issues rather than intrinsic to what an empire or a military order is.

I also found mysef put off by the prose. I don't need a book's prose to be incredible, but in this case, I found it distractingly overworked and clichéd. At times, I felt like I was reading Instagram captions instead of a novel, and I'd find myself taking a mental red pen to the text.

There were still things I enjoyed about the book, but I'm afraid that it's one of those novels where I enjoyed the world and the characters more than the actual story or writing.

[Dharshani · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main character Mathaiik is still a novitiate in the Order since he's unable to summon a weapon using his magic that would make him an Idallik knight. world it is now knows there are witches and lords who perform dark magic causing trouble to people and it is the duty of the Order to fight them. Mathaiik fights alongside the knights and his secret helps him save lives but also makes him question everything he's known so far.

The storyline is great with necromancers, undead things and has saving the world from doom as the ultimatum. Having said that the main problem is not introducing the world and magic system properly. The reader is just thrown in with big words, big magic and big problems and is expected to learn gradually. Of course, having to learn stuff alongside the main character is a style of writing but he's a grown up and his knowledge so far is still a mystery to the reader. That's where the real problem lies. Not everybody will be patient enough to read with so many unknowns and only understand what they are reading later. At around 65% all the details are revealed to the reader including who is who, what is what and what has to be done. So, I think if this book is best read knowing that because I believe the readers will either will push through and like this book or give up and DNF it.

I loved the last 35% of the book where everything is turned up several notches and the ending was just perfect. My suggestion to anybody who picks this would be to be patient enough to get into the heart of the problem and then slowly understand the world building, hierarchy of life, good and evil.

Something else to note is that there's a romance angle in the story with even an explicit intimate scene.

Thanks to NetGalley and Publisher for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Emilie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book.

I was very interested to read this book, but I just could not get into it. The story started off incredibly intriguing, but soon fell off when the world-building missed the mark. Often authors spend too much time in exposition, and the story gets lost in boring details. But in this case the exact opposite happened. People, places, and things were just mentioned in an off-hand, name-dropping kind of manner, and I truly felt like I was missing something. Was I supposed to know who these people were, and what was being referenced? I checked multiple times to make sure I wasn't reading a second or third in a series, but every place I looked said "stand alone." So I trudged along, even though I really felt like I had no idea--or no context!--for what was going on. After several chapters I realized that not only did I feel lost, I wasn't engaged enough with the story to find out more about what was going on. So I had to DNF.

[Karyn Silverman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh this was very good. Great world building, interesting characters, unexpected plotting. It does have a pretty central romance and a bit more open door at one point than I think was necessary but probably that just gives it better crossover from fantasy to romantasy readers, so. I’d love to see more in this world, but there’s not necessarily anything more to tell here.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

All about necromancy, sentient evil (but not really) plant queens, we follow a hot lady wizard reawakened after being asleep for hundreds of years and a failed knight noviciate as they try to bring balance to Chaos and Order magic.

I really enjoyed the dynamic between the main characters and this is a good, quick to read epic fantasy standalone.