Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review!

4.5 stars rounded to 5

I absolutely loved the world lore in this book - hidden cities in distant worlds, magical doorways and keys, fallen gods, a family curse haunting the Everlys. While the start was a little slow to pick up, by 20% in I was entirely hooked and completely invested in the story.

I found Violet Everly an easy to read FMC - she was pretty straight forward in her motives, brave and resourceful. I do wish we'd had more time focusing on her travels while searching across the globe for her missing mother, but I guess it would have had to be a duology to fit it all in. As its a standalone, we have a lot of time skips and flashbacks to fill in gaps that might have been built on more if it was a series.

If my only complaint is that I wished it was longer, I think that speaks volumes to how much I enjoyed the book.

Aleksander, the MMC, and Penelope, the antagonist, were both interesting characters as well, and it was great to get to see the story from their POV as well as Violet's - it made things feel much more rounded out.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys dark fairytales, adventure stories, strong-willed MCs and dreamy prose.

The City of Stardust is a beautifully written whimsical story with similarities to The Starless Sea and Laini Taylor's books. It is an engaging story which leaves you eager to continue reading.

I went into this book entirely blind, it was a cover request. Turns out it was a lucky choice, because it has fast become a favourite - I absolutely love the vibes this book puts out, and I think it will be extremely popular when released. This is the kind of book that you either gel with, or don't... I hope more people are able to gel with it, because it is honestly fantastic.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this one, I loved it.

*Thank you so much to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the chance to review an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

Generations of Everlys have been taken as punishment for a crime no one remembers. Their tormentor, Penelope, never ages and never forgives. Violet Everly was a child when her mother disappeared on a stormy night to try to break the curse, resulting in Penelope giving her 10 years to find her or take her place. Violet delves deep into the magical underground on her mission to break said curse. Does she have an ally in Penelope's assistant Aleksander? Violet will search the world for her mother and the key to the city of stardust where it all began.

The ominous prologue sparks the intrigue that follows us through this tale. Embellishments to the writing are like the lyrics to a pensive song. Figurative speech that is charismatic in the images it conveys, a whisper of gothicness. A narrative that promises adventure and breathes wisps of otherworldly.

Violet and Aleksander are connected in bittersweet melancholy, both feeling they have something to prove. Violet's determination is admirable. Meanwhile, Penelope is a ruthless, enjoyable villain, delightfully devious as are most of the scholars. The mythology of the scholars is compelling and intricate, as is the fantastical world beyond today's world.

There are frequent changes in POVs, sporadically even on the same page, making the storytelling more interesting, sometimes exciting, others disjointed and the changes are jarring. The plethora of details may heighten the descriptions though every so often they burden them. There are parts that are confusing but when the story finds its groove it is elegantly immersive.

Fate. Redemption. Revenge and how soul-consuming it is. These are a few noteworthy themes that enrich the narrative. This is a story of wonder and awe, enchanting in its imagination, of journeys and quests and returning home, in more ways than one.

Thank you so much Netgalley and Hodderscape for sending me this Arc!
Unfortunately I had to DNF at the 30% mark. I really tried to get into this book. Now the reason I found it difficult was there were many POV switches, all of which were written in 3rd person. Which seems not only unecessary (one of the joys of 3rd person is we get multiple POV's at once) but also made it hard to keep up.
One thing I think readers will really enjoy about this book is the writing style. It's very whimsicle and reminiscent to me of The Invisible Life of Addie Larue which is also a book that I struggled with. I just think the writing style is not for me but will be a hit with a lot of people.
I do not usually give star ratings to books I DNF as I think it is unfair so the rating below is a reflection of the experience I had with the 30% I read.
Goodreads review will be available once goodreads is back up and running.

Part mystery, part fantasy, The City of Stardust is a compelling fantasy adventure, with a unique magic system. Slightly slow starting, the reader uncovers the mysteries of Fidelis at the same time as Violet Everly, a young woman, abandoned by her mother and brought up in isolation by her Uncle's. With her mother off on an adventure, Violet desires to follow in her footsteps, without fully understanding the history of gods, magic, curses and cruelty that has plagued her family for generations.
Enter Aleksander, a student of gods-metal, and a servant sent to prise Violet's secrets from her. Distinctly grey, Aleksander can never quite be trusted, even as his feelings for Violet start to blur the lines between his loyalty to her, and to his mentor, Penelope. Penelope has a vested interest in Violet's family, and as we uncover the reason's why, they are chilling.
I very much hope to see more stories set in this world, as there are plenty of mysteries left to uncover!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC of this book!

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this one, but it has a great storyline with a lot of interesting elements. Somehow they didn’t quite come together for me - I felt like the ‘action’ of the book never quite arrived, and there wasn’t a huge amount of progression to the story.

I think I saw another reviewer saying this is a ‘vibes’ book and I definitely agree with that. It was very much like an Erin Morgenstern, particularly The Starless Sea, but this one didn’t quite hit the mark for me, unlike Morgenstern’s books. I feel like the story has SO MUCH potential, but there was too ‘much’ - I think the actual story and the worlds described were amazing but not very fleshed out, and the romance aspect to the story also left me wanting it to have developed into something more.

Overall I did really enjoy this! It did take me a few weeks to read, in between other things, which I feel for me is a mark of struggling my way through a book a bit, but now I’m finished it was definitely worth persevering.

This is a charming read with wonderful prose, that to me was very reminiscent of The Starless Sea, The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue (although I haven't finished that one), The Thousand Doors of January, and a little bit of the magic we see in The Chronicles of Narnia.

Set in a lush and magical world, sadly the story itself is watered down by the heavy descriptions. I'm a very character driven reader and felt like both the plot and characters were, overall, lackluster. Still, it is a book with immense potential that left me excited to see what the author can do next.
If you are someone reading for *vibes* this one will probably be for you!

Thank you NetGalley and Redhook Books for the chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review :)

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

The narrative swept me along so I could hardly put this book down. Summers did a great job of the world-building and I particularly loved that she didn't shy away from complex family relationships. Violet is an engaging protagonist and Aleksander an interesting foil and love interest. Penelope is also a well-written villain, to the point of wanting to hear even more from her. An impressive debut and I look forward to reading more from this author.

I've had this on my Netgalley shelf for a while now but there was always something else that stopped me picking it up. Pushed by the looming archive date, I finally went in and I'm really glad I did.

City of Stardust is a fantasy story, but set in a modern world, which kind of threw me at first. I kept having to adjust the visuals in my head as I was picturing medieval type costumes and then someone ordered a latte in a coffee shop or flew to New York. This soon settled though and I was able to get into the story.

It's a great story and I really enjoyed it, but the ending felt rushed and left many unanswered questions for me, which is why it doesn't have 5 stars.

The fantasy elements with the stars, keys and doors I particularly loved, and it would have been nice to explore a little more of them.

It's been marketed as a standalone, but there is a lot of opportunity to expand the worlds, so I'm hopeful the writer will revisit at some point!

An impressive debut, Georgia Summers is very talented and I'll definitely be following her closely.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers, Hodder and Stoughton for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A book about doors and magical worlds, a curse and mysteries. I couldn’t wait to read this book!
The writing is very beautiful. The world is also orignal and intriguing. I absolutely love the dynamic of the potential romance because it’s complicated and I love grey characters.
It took me a long time however to finish and I think it’s partly because the plot moves really slowly. There were some moments which felt like pauses in the story and sometimes I didn’t mind, sometimes I thought it dragged a bit.
Some questions remain unanswered which adds to the mysterious atmosphere of the book.
I really liked the ending. It’s original and beautifully written.
I recommend it if you were interested by the blurb because the book kept his promises of magic and adventure!
I just wish some characters were more developed and some relationships were more explored (friends and brothers) .

✨"The end of the world looks a lot like the beginning of another, it turns out."✨

As my last review of the year I would like to talk you about a book that I found magical and evocative. In this read you will find scholars with knowledge of other places and cultures, doors that will allow you to reach other worlds, vengeful Gods and curses.

💫What struck me the most about this book was the prose which was very delicate , magical and evocative thus going to achieve a world that turned out to be very real . I also loved the world building based on mythology , curse and keys that open doors to other worlds .

💫As for the characters I liked Violet: I found her stubborn , brave and sometimes naive to the people and society... but since she has spent most of her life locked up in the family manor I wouldn’t have expected anything less. But as she travels the world to try to break the curse she grows and changes.
Aleksander has a complicated past and is eternally torn between his feelings for Violet and his loyalty to Penelope,which is why he comes to take some questionable actions.
💫My favorite character, however, is undoubtedly Penelope alias our villain. She undoubtedly villainous, but she is a complex character with an equally complex background that I have not come to fully understand. There are a lot of stories about her and on why she needs the Everlys that don't come close to the truth though, leaving her so in a constant halo of mystery.

💫 I found in " the City of Stardust " that book suitable for those who are always looking for a new adventure full of magic that will take them from one corner of the world to another. If I had to compare it to a book I would call it similar to " Addie LaRue " both in prose and structure. So if you are a lover of the genre and if like you loved Schwab's book , I can only recommend this read!

💫thank you netgalley for the ARC copy.

The City of Stardust is one of those stories where the writing is just as magical as the actual story itself. Violet Everly's life is on a timer, though she doesn't know that just yet. Thanks to a curse generations in the making, she is just the latest of the Everly's to have to pay the price, a curse that her mother abandoned her to try and end. But when she hears and finds no trace of her mother, Violet decides to go and try and end the curse herself. Her journey will take her around the planet, and also to places not found on our world, but to end the curse for good, Violet will have to find a magical key that leads to a magical city, a city where the curse originated and only there can it end.

Violet is a character that I had no trouble empathising with. Someone who has been lied to the majority of her life by her uncle's. They saw it as protection, but Violet can only see it as blinding her to her future, making sure she is unprepared when the curse comes calling. She resents so much, the curse, the Everly's that came before her and didn't fight, her mother who abandoned her, and she longs for something more. A life of freedom, one where the curse isn't weighing over her head, where she can live a normal life. The story is told mainly from her POV, but we also get smatterings of Aleksander's POV as well. Aleksander is someone who grew up in Fidelis, the magical city that is tied to the Everly's. The assistant of Penelope, the person who has come to claim the curse, he has lived a solitary life, one not filled with love rather desire. Desire for something that seem's constantly out of his grasp. Both of our MC's are a little broken, both want something more from their lives, and both are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that.

Alongside Violet and Aleksander, Summer's also includes little stories, stories that add to the overall mystery of the Everly's and the curse, and also give big clues as to how it came about. Summer's also graces us with a well built cast of side characters from Violets uncles to members of the city of Fidelis, but the one who gets by far the most page time is Penelope, the person who is linked to the Everly's in some way. She's a character I can't talk much about because it would give huge spoilers, but she plays such a huge part in the story and adds an almost horror like vibe to the plot.

Despite the flowerly prose and lyrical writing style this book deals with some pretty heavy and dark themes, so do check for trigger warnings before diving in. I was actually surprised, pleasantly, with how dark it got in parts, and I felt that these parts added to the tension and drama of the story, something that was needed because of the authors writing style. Summers writing was without a doubt beautiful, but it also almost took us out of the story, rather than dragging us in. Parts read like we were watching the scene from above, detached from the action, and while this would usually lessen any emotional impact, if anything it added to it. It made the story feel unique, I'd never really read anything told quite like this, but it added another magical element to an already magical story.

There is a romance arc that runs through this story and if I'm being honest, I didn't totally love it, but it doesn't play a massive part in the story. It's a romance filled with deception and has two broken people who are just looking for someone to love them for who they are, not what they are or what they can do. But I think what saved it were all the other relationships Violet had/made. The love from her uncle's, and the help she gets from certain members of the Fidelis society. These all add to the emotion and sometimes danger of the story and help further Violet's search for the end of her curse. It's also more a story about Violet claiming her own story, taking back her life and ending the curse that has plagued her family for centuries, and the romance play's second fiddle to this.

If I had one little issue it would be with the pacing, parts seemed to fly by and others seemed to go on longer than needed, I also felt there were certain parts of the book that weren't explained/tied up well enough at the end & I certainly had a few questions. That being said, these weren't big enough issues to effect my overall love of the book. If you're in the mood for a magical read, one that keeps you guessing and takes you right back to when you used to believe magical worlds were just a doorway away, I would highly recommend picking this one up. It does have an open ending, something I know not everyone loves, but it fits this story so well and was the perfect ending to Violets story.

While I did love the book, it took me a bit to warm up to the way the story was being told. We see everything unfold through different characters perspectives, but the story is always told in the 3rd person. This made City of Stardust a bit less immersive that what I tend to prefer and made me feel I knew more about what the characters were seeing than feeling. This is more relevant for Violet’s POV than Aleksander, which despite being less lengthy, it is somewhat more fleshed out.

I have seen this book being compared a lot with The Invisilble Life of Addie Larue, and while I understand the comparison, I have found it much more reminiscent of His Dark Materials. If you enjoyed either one of them, do not hesitate to pick City of Stardust in January 2024

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Sadly, this book wasn’t for me.
I was really intrigued by the concept and even though it was pitched as ‘for fans of Addie LaRue’, which I wasn’t a fan of, I was hoping that I might still enjoy this book.

Now, I do think that it was gorgeously written and I was definitely intrigued by the story and magic, and I enjoyed the characters.

However, I couldn’t get into the story and ended up DNFing a third in.

I think if you’re more the target audience of this book (I think Addie LaRue is definitely a great comparable title), then this is certainly worth picking up.

This book was so beautifully written, it was whimsical and enchanting and reminded me of The Night Circus. Reading this, it was easy to get swept away into magick and possibility.

However, I didn't fall in love with the characters or the plot as much as I would have liked. Many will adore this book, but it just wasn't my vibe (even though I do appreciate the gorgeous writing)

“A curse can be many things.”

I loved the concept of this book. It’s a fairytale come to life. It’s curses and magic. It’s impossible doorways to other worlds. It’s a bookish girl on a quest.

It appears The City of Stardust has already divided the book world in two. There are those who have fallen in love with it and those whose expectations didn’t match reality. Unfortunately, I’m one of the latter.

This book had so much potential but, although the individual elements were right up my alley, it didn’t come together like I’d hoped it would. In saying that, though, I want to acknowledge that I have been in a reading slump recently so this may well have distorted my view.

I usually love the bookish girl, if only because she’s bookish, but I never really felt like I got to know Violet.

The romance didn’t work for me and neither did the friendship, for that matter. Sure, they both have pain. Violet’s been abandoned and Aleksander’s been abused. However, he betrays her time and time again, and every time she forgives him. I’m not someone whose first instinct is violence but Violet’s naivety and gullibility frequently combined to make me wish I could hit her across the head with one of her books. Preferably a hardcover.

I have so many unanswered questions: about scholars, reveurite, Marianne Everly, the way this world works.

I most wanted to know more about Penelope, who has the ability to hold a grudge for all eternity. She has her reasons and I understood those but I craved more depth from her.

I’d be interested in reading more books by this author and I’m considering a reread once my reading no longer slumps to see if this changes my experience of the Everly curse but, for now at least, I’m chalking this one up to not for me at this time.

‘Hello, little dreamer’

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Hodderscape, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, for the opportunity to read this book.

“The City of Stardust” is an intriguing magical book by Georgia Summers. Lost cities, magical keys, gods and mortals in the mix in an adventure against time to solve a millennial old curse. What is there not to love? Not to be intrigued about? Not to be obsessed over? And because all good books need a dose of love in the mix, Georgia added that too!

The writing style is spellbinding, giving more than one point of view and getting into the head of more than one character. A story that includes everyone and gives you a spherical view of the situation! I was fully immersed for 10 days in the world of Violet Everly and her family curse that no one remembered when it started and why.
This book makes you want more. I couldn’t put it down, I had to know what happened next. I loved all the interactions between Violet and Alexander and the romance that couldn’t afford themselves to live freely. And all the determination Violet had to find her mother and solve the mystery as well as break the curse of the Everly family.

I would definitely recommend it to all lovers of magical worlds, lost cities and powerful gods involved with common mortals, romance and young adult lovers as well. In my opinion is a must-read! And I can’t wait for the publishing day to get a copy for my library!

My special thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for my early copy.

I really enjoyed this beautifully written novel! The story itself was full of wonder and mystery, I just want to keep exploring this world Georgia Summers created! I enjoyed the chemistry between Violet and Alexander, but there was a lot of damage done between them. I thought the ending was satisfying, but I still feel like there are a lot of questions that could be answered!

Although I struggle with third person fantasy, when it’s well done I do not notice. And this is the case with this book. The prose was lovely as well as multiple POVs. As with any debut series, world building and setting the scene is a little overwhelming but once you’re there, it makes sense. Highly recommend.