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.

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.