Book Review: The Ashes & The Star-Cursed King (The Nightborn Duet #2) by Carissa Broadbent

Genre: Romantasy

Pages: 626 (Kindle Edition)

Spice: 🌶️🌶️

⭐⭐⭐

Available on Kindle Unlimited

Spoilers (marked with *)

Summary:

After the finale of the Kejari, Oraya is now a prisoner in her own home. Stricken with the grief of her Father's death and Raihn's betrayal, Oraya feels lost. When she is offered a secret alliance, one that could gift her vengeance and her kingdom, Oraya learns of a devastating power entwined with her Father's past. But, with enemies closing in on all sides, she finds herself having to choose between the reality of claiming power and the love that could be her downfall.

My Review:

In a lot of cases, the second book is WAY better than the first. That is not the case of this duology. What happened here? From repetitive inner monologues, to devolving characters, to a messy plot, this novel was missing everything that made the first one so incredible.

Starting with our leading lady. Oraya lost all the fight that made her so intriguing in the first book. While I fully understand her feelings after losing her Father and Raihn's betrayal. She's got a lot of conflicting things going on in her head and I was glad she didn't immediately forgive Raihn and jump back into his arms. But her inner monologue just became so annoyingly repetitive. By 30% I was like "ok. can we move the train along here." All the fire and rage and fierceness of her personality was gone. Her Kingdom has been stolen and she barely fought back. Around the 50% mark and "big-ish" moment in the plot, the Oraya from The Serpent and the Wings of Night was back and the story picked up.

Raihn was Raihn, a little bland compared to the first book and I can't pinpoint why...Mische became a fart in the wind and lost all her flowery joyfulness. Vincent really became the only character that got more in depth and was enjoyable to read about. Delving into his past was very interesting and gave some insight into who he really was.

The Villains are the ones that lacked any depth. Their reasoning for all that they did wasn't really solid, or even put on the page. And I'm sorry...who's Simon? Why are we adding another bad guy 75% of the way through the book?

While I very much enjoy Carissa's writing style and flow, The Ashes & The Star-Cursed King was just messy. I feel like she started writing without really having any idea where the plot was going. And only half figured it out by the end of the story. Too much time was spent on nothing happening and not enough time was spent on moves being made and truths being revealed.

The beginning was very slow going and then just ended up following the same plot-points as the first book. SPOILER ALERT *Oraya allies with Raihn, then a mirror to the cave scene where Raihn drinks from Oraya, and Oraya giving up her chance at victory to save Raihn's life.* Wtf Carissa? It felt so lazy:( While the Interludes in the first book were enjoyable and gave insight into our main character, the ones in this novel were honestly just weird. Why am I reading about Raihn falling in love with Nessanyn, when the romance is between him and Oraya? The interludes added nothing to the story.

So many pass-out-fade-to-black chapter endings and then waking up somewhere else with everything resolved. What? Again, a shortcut that felt so lazy. And I'm sorry...Oraya...Carissa...making Raihn beg for her vagina is not a way to exact revenge on him for KILLING HER FATHER! That entire scene made me cringe. It was just a mirror to the spicy moments in the first novel.

The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King did not live up to The Serpent and the Wings of Night. Everything felt too convenient and easy, the characters were lacking their fire and spunk, the plot was messy and the whole novel fell flat. The reason I still gave it 3 stars is because the last half of the book was decent and our leading lady came back strong. But damn, it felt like ages getting there.