I gave this book a quick try, and ultimately decided to DNF -- my tastes have changed since I requested this. Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book!

Not for me. I couldn't get on with the main character and Im not a fan of the writing style.

Absolutely loved this book. Lucy is an amazing author in that she has written a fantasy book that is completely different to anything I have read before. Can’t wait to find out what happens next

This is a wonderful story for young adults up to all ages.
The world building and characters make for a really engaging story.

The first book I am going to tell you about is Starborn by Lucy Hounsom. This is the first in the Worldmaker series and I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley. I have to admit I actually started reading this book a few months ago, stopped to read something else then forgot I had it. Oops!

Kyndra has just come of age and looking forward to participating in the ancient naming ceremony that will allow her to find her true path. Unfortunately, for Kyndra the vessel used in the ceremony breaks when she is about to find out her true name and she is blamed for disrupting the ceremony and all the tragic events that follow. Its not long before she finds herself on the run with two sorcerers who take her to the secret citadel of Naris. There she is plagued with visions from the past, through the eyes of man thought to be long dead. Caught in the middle of the rebels and the fanatics within the hidden chambers of the citadel Kyndra is cruelly tested in a bid to unlock her magic. All the while the visions show her a past no one knew existed. Kyndra doesn't have much time to find out who she truly is, save her new friends in the citadel and the family she was forced to leave behind.

Starborn is rather standard fantasy aimed at a younger reader although not too young as there is a rather dark theme, mainly towards one of the female characters, that might not be suitable for anyone under the age of 18. I thought that Kyndra was realistically portrayed for her age - neither too brave or too cowardly. Several chapters in the later half of the book were told from the POV of two of Kyndra's companions which was a bit jarring as this wasn't the format of the story throughout and I wish it had been as it really worked. I think that Hounsom could have done a bit more to build the world in which the characters were set. There was fairly little description of the landscape, society or different races throughout Kyndra's travels. Within Naris it was more descriptive but I thought that was more to set the scene rather than to create a realistic world for the characters to interact with. Overall, it was an OK read but I am not completely sure I wan to invest more time with Kyndra. I used to really enjoy young fantasy but think I have a bit of burn out from reading too much of it that wasn't that exceptional in the last few years.

Starborn was boring. Gut-wrenchingly so. Which was a shame since it had so much potential. The main issue was the characters. I didn't care about any of them, perhaps with the exception of Bregenne, the blind but capable mentor figure to Kyndra, the protagonist. I can't help thinking that this might have been better if it was written in 1st person and then I might have been able to empathise with Kyndra. As it stands the characterisation was poor, the writing didn't draw me in and the world building wasn't in any way interesting.

The one saving grace was the cover which is beautiful.

Where to start with this one. Let’s kick off with concept. Conceptually this book is, not bad? Lunar and solar magical powers is a cool idea, the secret society of magic wielders is also interesting. There’s a library which is something I love in a book. There’s a ‘strong female character’ which is appreciated as well as some other interesting side characters many of whom are women.

The trouble is that could be describing a number of YA novels. In fact it could be describing at least 10 of the novels I’ve read this month, you just swap out ‘lunar and solar’ for something else. Which isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. There’s a reason these things are tropes, they make for good reading. But when you read the sheer amount of YA fantasy that I do you begin to be able to predict what is going to happen from page one.

In this case, that was particularly annoying as I worked out what was going to happen pretty early on and then it took the entire book to get to the point where the thing I was waiting for actually happened. Not in a ‘continual building of tension and lulling into a false sense of security’ kind of way. More in a ‘get to the point we’ve been here for 300 pages and not that much has changed’ sort of way.

Kyndra, our protagonist, is the most predictable of the bunch. She’s not irritating as some heroine’s are, but she felt very stereotypical as a YA heroine. I actually think a whole book written from the perspective of her sort of mentor who we meet in the book would have been 20x better because any time the story was about her I was intensely more interested.

That’s mostly all I have to say on the matter. If this was one of the few YA fantasy novels you had ever read you would probably enjoy this a lot, which is why the star rating for this one is so high. As a book on it’s own I can really only fault the length (it’s about 100 pages longer than it needs to be) but as a book that has a place in a genre that is already swimming with similar titles this just doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from the pack and I think hardcore YA fantasy readers will leave feeling unsatisfied.

My rating: 4 stars (3 or 2 if you read a lot of YA)

Starborn is available for order now if it is something you think you might like.

By the way, I received a digital review copy of this book for free from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

ARC copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is an enjoyable fantasy, somewhere between a pure adventure and an epic. The world building was well done and evocative - managing to conjure images of something like middle earth mixed with medieval England with a few almost steam punk elements and an interesting magic system. It does travel the well worn treads of a young person of ordinary descent suddenly finding out that they have a birthright which shapes their world view anew, however it tackles this in a fresh engaging way, not merely resorting to tired tropes. The plot may contain few surprises for dedicated fantasy fans but it is nevertheless an entertaining journey.

I found the characterization a bit spotty - none of them really stood out for me although I liked a few of them well enough. A few characters might have benefited from greater exposition, whilst others could have done with less as they didn't really add anything. Kyndra was a puzzle in this regard; one moment she has agency and the next she doesn't and things just happen to her while she passively thinks about them. I did like her but I can't say I really connected with her. There was no great strength or great flaw, nothing to really get a grip on.

The pace could have done with variation. It wasn't too slow or too fast but it was pretty much the same throughout. Which is fine if you want to follow an epic adventure slightly removed from the action, but I like to be a bit closer to the characters I'm reading. I was pulled back to read the book not out of a need to know what happened next, but out of a desire to visit that world again. If you can have 'ideas fantasy' then this is probably a good example - at one stage almost all the supporting characters, and consequently the choices they represent, are uniformly horrible. However this does call into question the responsibilities of power, the habit of clinging to outmoded beliefs and systems, and the effects of segregation - even the psychology behind the latter.

It may not have had me on the edge of my seat but I would definitely look out for book two. Quiet, slower fantasy is good if it is done well and this is.