Thank you to the author, publishers Hodderscape and NetGalley UK for access to this as an advance reader’s ebook. This is an honest and voluntary review.

Violet Everly’s family is cursed. Her mother disappeared on the trail of a cure and now the time of the curse is coming due. Can Violet succeed where her ancestors failed and finally end the generations long sacrifice to a vengeful god.

I really wanted to love this book and I’m sad that I didn’t. The concept really appealed to me, but the delivery of the world and characters just didn’t deliver. Parts of the plot seemed to leap forward leaving me flicking back virtual pages trying to figure out if I’d missed a section of narrative that explained a linking moment between then and now.

This sense of disconnection from the plot probably didn’t help me feel for the characters. There was just something missing that meant I never really cared about Violet or Aleksander. There were just too many questions left unanswered, but left in a way that it felt the author hadn’t thought about them rather than it feeling like a mystery intentionally left a mystery.

I received an audioarc and e-arc through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

I found the narration boring.
I wasn't a fan of the writing style, and I almost fell asleep listening to the book.
The narrator Kitty Parker has a nice voice, but there was just something about her narration that didn't capture me. There was no emotion to her voice, it felt like listening to AI generated voice.
I often use internet Explorer when I need to read PDF files or read other things like articles and other webpages. And listening to this book, was exactly like listening to that narrator voice I use for school. So this was absolutely boring to me. There was no life, no atmosphere or mood as to say. Maybe it's just the writing? But this was just so absolutely boring to listen to.

As for the story, I just couldn't get into it at all. I didn't care for any of the characters either.
I really think it was just the writing style that wasn't for me.
I think I need to re-read this again for another time just to really be sure how I feel. Because I'm ambivalent at the moment.

Fans of The Starless Sea and The Ten Thousand Doors of January will LOVE THIS BOOK! A perfect balance of beautiful and lyrical writing, an over-arching plot that spans centuries, mythology, adventure, and complicated human relationships.

I really enjoyed the character Penelope. I love a female villain and Penelope is the queen of female villains! I was intrigued by her 'relationship' with Alexsander and how complicated, layered, and toxic it was. I kind of wish that was addressed a bit more.

Seeing how the fantasy world and the mundane blend into one another was exhilarating and I completely identified with Violet and her desire for adventure!

This book had such beautiful prose, full of gorgeous magical whimsy that was truly captivating but unfortunately the plot and characters were seriously lacking. This book had such potential to be something incredible but I felt absolutely nothing for any of the characters, which was really disappointing because the descriptions of this world were so stunning.

I don’t think this book will be one I remember well over time but I will keep an eye out for this authors future work because she really does write beautifully and hopefully we can see some more memorable characters written by her in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and Hodder & Stougton for the free eARC of "The City of Stardust" by Georgia Summers.
I am so glad I tried the ARC before I was tempted to pre-order an actual book.
This is a Young Agult Fantasy, despite the marketing that says it is Adult Fantasy.
I did not realised thus until the 10% mark.
At the begining the female lead is a clever child, but then we fast forward to her beeing a teen, moaning about the fact she is "to special" to work in a café, and experiencing a insta-love immediately after.
No, thank you very much. I don't have the patience for the YA subgenre.
I am sure this book will find its own audience, but that audience does not include myself.
I wish the author the best of luck in her writing, she is not to be blamed for the misleading marketing.

Me está costando encontrar últimamente novelas de fantasía que no tengan un fuerte componente romántico y aunque The City of Stardust lo tiene más atenuado que otras, también está presente.


La novela sigue los pasos de Violet, la última descendiente de la familia Everly, criada por sus tíos ya que su madre desapareció siendo ella niña para intentar romper la maldición que pesa sobre la familia, ya que un miembro de cada generación desaparece por razones que no quedan muy claras. Violet, criada entre misterios, se empeñará en descubrir dónde está su madre y también cuáles son las causas de su futura perdición.

Georgia Summers utiliza de una manera muy inteligente la figura maternal ausente como un constante acicate para la curiosidad e incluso el instinto de supervivencia de Violet, pero descubre bastante pronto cuál es el juego de Penélope, la causa de todas sus desdichas. Que su supuesta salvación dependa de una persona que prácticamente no aparece en todo el libro mientras que su “torturadora” sí que se mantiene cerca, es una dualidad muy interesante y bien estudiada. Los típicos plazos de un año y un día que solemos relacionar con los pactos feéricos también están presentes en el libro, junto con un grupo de estudiosos que solo ansían conseguir más poder y que tendrán un papel decisivo en el devenir de la novela.

Ahora bien, existen otros problemas durante la lectura. El ritmo desfallece en variadas ocasiones y parece que se estiran algunos capítulos innecesariamente. La definición de los personajes tampoco es el punto fuerte de la novela, porque aparte de Violet y Penelope, los demás quedan bastante difusos, incluso el interés romántico del que hacía mención en el primer párrafo, que es que casi ni me acuerdo de cómo se llamaba (Aleksander, pero he hecho trampa y he ido a consultarlo).

The City of Stardust es un libro que puede recordar algo a una fantasía de hace unas décadas, pero con una pátina de modernidad que si bien no lo convierte en una lectura imprescindible, sí que lo hace entretenido.

I’ve been after a new standalone fantasy novel to obsess over, and this sounded right up my street. Power-hungry scholars, ancient gods and underworld monsters? Sign. Me. Up.

Beautiful cover aside, The City of Stardust didn’t disappoint in terms of high fantasy with a big magic presence. For centuries, generations of Everlys have seen a member of their family disappear, taken as ‘punishment’ for a centuries-old crime that nobody seems to remember. Ten years ago, Violet Everly’s mother left their world, determined to break this terrible curse. And, now, Violet follows in her footsteps to find her mother… or be taken in her place. Thus begins Violet’s descent into a magical underworld, switching between worlds that teem with scholars, monsters, gods and curses. There’s Penelope, the tormentor, and her assistant, Aleksander, who Violet instantly feels drawn too.

I felt this was a surprisingly strong debut from Summers. The world-building is rich and evocative, the story dark, and there’s a winning amount of magic and lore – I feel like, recently, the fantasies I’ve picked up lack the magic?! And, it’s an ode to book lovers, with some really stunning passages at the start, since Violet is a bookworm and fiction-adventurer herself. However, while I found the concept and overall plot fascinating, the novel loses focus at the midway point for me. The reveals are for us, not the characters, which is a bit stressful, and the pacing is really off for me. I kept thinking I was at the grand finale at the 70% mark, then 75%, then 80%, which meant the ending felt anti-climatic and surely drawn-out. I wish Violet had more character development and that any development she did get were maintained throughout the story.

Rating: 3.8 stars
Pace: Medium to Fast
Genre: Fantasy, Fairytale like
Romance: Light

I liked this book, it's perfect cosy read for winter season. Writing style is very nice and adds a lot to the atmosphere.

The story happens in our world in current time, with travel to other worlds. We slowly learn of the world as the book progresses and it becomes more more interesting.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC, it has been a pleasure to read this book. I can only recommend it!

'The City of Stardust' is a dark fantasy by new author Georgia Summers. The story revolves around Violet Everly, a young woman who has been brought up by her uncles after her mother mysteriously went off 'on an adventure'. On reaching adulthood Violet discovers her family is cursed and one person from every generation is given over to Penelope, a beautiful immortal. Her mother left in the hopes of ending the curse, but has never returned, and now Violet is next in line for sacrifice. She sets off on a quest around the world to try to find her mother and break the curse herself, helped - or possibly hindered - by Penelope's assistant, the handsome and troubled Alexander.

I read a lot of this type of fantasy adventure novel and would rate it as middling within a genre that is full of great books. Violet is a sympathetic protagonist but I never really loved her or any of the other characters. The plot was reasonably engaging but a bit disjointed and with some holes and frustrating loose ends. I found the relationship between Violet and Alexander hard to believe in. I felt the descriptions were somewhat lacking because I never really visualised the places or felt transported to them in the way that some authors can make me feel.

It's on the dark side for my taste, verging on horror. There's more blood and gore than I personally prefer, although I do tend to the squeamish so probably most readers won't mind that. But more than that, there's an underlying grimness that defeats the escapism and wonder that I look for in a fantasy novel. It's described by the blurb as 'filled with magic and stardust'. But whilst the narrative does involve those things, it's not an enchanting, transporting read. The best fantasy can give you that tingle of magical enjoyment whilst also exploring darker themes, but I don't feel the balance was right here. The magic is generally of a prosaic kind - metal working and scholarly academia.

Having said all this, I don't think it is a 'bad' book as such, and I would recommend it to readers who enjoy darker fantasy and have enough time to read the more average offerings in the genre as well as the very best.

What a debut from Georgia Summers! The City of Stardust is a bold and atmospheric story of love, perseverance and magic, mixed in with a dash of dark academia and The Starless Sea-esque vibes. I loved it!

Following the story of Violet Everly, TCoS entangles a family curse with godlike magic as we traverse the globe with Violet as she tries to free herself from the villain’s clutches— a woman called Penelope who is both powerful and bloodthirsty. I loved how effortlessly Summers combined one woman’s quest for answers with gorgeous prose. It’s truly a story that sucks you in and keeps you reading long past your bedtime. The elements around magical scholarship brought the dark academia vibes well Violet and Aleksander’s relationship provided the perfect tempering of slow burn romance. It was surprisingly more violent than I was expecting, but that just made Penelope a very convincing and spine chilling villain. Truly, I’m impressed with how fleshed out the story was in a relatively short amount of pages.

Perfect for readers who love a bit of atmosphere, poetic prose, and a genuinely fascinating secret society of magical scholars, Georgia Summers’ debut is sure to be a big hit!

2,5 / 5

I’m so utterly confused by this book that I don't really know where to begin with this.

When I read the description of the book and it said “for fans of The Starless Sea”, I knew this would be a hit or miss, as I wasn’t a big fan (or any fan for that matter) of The Starless Sea. But I got blinded by the cover and the rest of the description so here we are.

Now that I’ve finished the book, all I see is really a shorter version of The Starless Sea to be honest, but with more plot. Both books have a similar and arguably the same structure and if the books give off anything, then it’s the same vibes. And confusing.

The world building of anything not-real-life-related was very vague: Doors, keys, scholars and elsewhere. So vague, that I still don’t have a concept of it, really. I guess the goal was to make it seem magical. This other, unknown place, where all those great things are possible. Whatever they may be.

The characters in general were meh at best and unnecessary at worst.
The best I can say about the main characters Violet and Aleksander is probably that I feel indifferent to them.
Violet was your typical “doesn’t know anything and has to figure out everything”- type of girl. And she really did know nothing. But was really quick sometimes to make sense of things. How ?
And Aleksander is “the broken one who fails to pick a side because it’s loyalty > common sense and is blind to the obvious”- kinda guy. I’m still not sure of his full backstory, his personality or him as a person.
The romance, if you can call it that, between those two was more of a suggestion considering they barely spend any actual time together. Their connection really boils down to Violet seeing him as her source of all those things she doesn’t know anything about.
Penelope is the one and only character I would call interesting and that's only because she reminded me of the Evil Queen from the early seasons of Once Upon a Time…

The writing was fine. The descriptions were very..broad? A lot of big words were used and a lot of the time it was a mouthful to a point that I had to reread some parts because I didn't know what the author was talking about.
The strongest and best part for me of the book were the handful of interlude chapters. They were short and nicely done.

The pacing was fine up until the 50% mark and then it just got very weird. A lot of time jumps and changes of locations.

The last ca. 50 pages of the book I can only describe as rambling and constant repeating of thoughts and things we already know ( and have read several times). This whole part could have been either shortened or edited out.

This book felt in equal parts too long and too short.
I wasn’t feeling like I got a satisfying conclusion for all of the different plot strings, even though the author made sure to mention everyone who had more than a-one sentence-appearance.

Having said all of that, I can see who this book might appeal to. And the cover is pretty.The rest..I think going into this with no expectations will help with your reading experience.


Thank you Hodder & Stoughton for providing this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this.

I loved the premise of this book with magic, a family curse and a mysterious disappearance to solve. I really liked the writing style and description and the first couple of chapters really drew me in.

Unfortunately after that I struggled with some aspects. I didn't find any of the characters particularly likeable. Violent suddenly seemed very grown up and able to handle a lot of things having previously lived a very sheltered life, which was quite jarring. I struggled with the pacing - it felt very slow and at times I had difficulty following the storyline.

Third person from multiple POV
Sometimes it was hard to follow whose POV it was focusing on at times
(I do have a preference of either 1st person single or multiple POV or third person with single POV)

With many twists and turns, it kept me intrigued throughout. The world building was compelling, and I enjoyed finding more and more out, especially from different POV.

I enjoyed the characters, some more than others.

The book did remind me of Atlas Six in the way it is presented. It had similar secret academia vibes.

Thank you Netgallery for this arc.

DNF.

This book started great, with a mystery. I was hooked in a second. Then there are hidden worlds and stories and magic keys and gods and mysterious creatures and people and a lot of magic. Then, it’s nothing. It’s just dragging and dragging and a lot of build and drama and tension and people are dying because of someone, but we still don’t know what that someone exactly did. At 50% I wanted to stop reading because nothing happens.

Characters are bland. There are so many and they look so interesting. I really wanted to feel more towards them, but i couldn’t be curious. Violet is so naive, extremely naive, so easily forgiving, weak, and Alexander is just plainly awful, a manipulator and I hated him. The romance was extreme forced, just for the sake of romance and I couldn’t care less about them. They don’t have chemistry, she just says “he’s beautiful” and that’s all. I think it should be an enemies to lovers tropes, but I couldn’t see it.

As much as i like the writing style, very whimsical and lyrical, you read it like it’s a fairytale, that’s all. There are just descriptions over descriptions and more descriptions. Trust me, I’m ok with descriptions in a book, I’ve read Hobb and she’s the master of descriptions. BUT! In this book, it’s just tiring. And then there’s the change of the POV in the middle of the chapter, which didn’t thrilled me. Because I started the book loving it and then I just lost my interest thanks to unnecessarily details, weak and bland dialogues and boring vendettas.

The world building is not very well explained, we just know there are magic worlds. I’m in the middle of the book and I had to force myself to read this book. Unfortunately, I can’t do it anymore.

Because I DNF it, I don’t know how’s the ending. But I’ve read some reviews and I realised it wouldn’t like it.

I know this book will be very popular when it’s going to come out, and I hope you’ll like it more than I did. But for me, it’s a DNF with 2 stars.

I feel this book had such a great premise and the concept was giving me all the magical ans whimsical vibes.

Unfortunately it did not deliver that.

I felt that for the first 30% of the book was alot of Build and tension and drama. But I didn't feel it the way it was probably intended to. At around half way I felt like I spent half a book not really engaging and not loving it as much as I'd like.

For me the biggest thing about this book was that there was potential and moments where I thought it was getting better and more enjoyable. It did not. It gave me alot of Erin Morgenstern vibes, who I love, but it wasn't giving the same effect.

3 stars!
A lovely, slow paced adventure with such fun characters. The uncles were my favourite and I wish we got to see a little more of them! Really enjoyed the world and magic system, unique and interesting. The author was incredibly clever with interspersing warm, happier moments throughout a larger tale with much darker undertones. Even the side characters felt believable and interesting.

I enjoyed this book, it was a good read and there certainly wasn't anything objectively bad about it however I find myself somewhat meh read, I just don't have a lot to say about it either way.

Something about this managed to feel very cosy, even with the darker elements. This felt like a carefully crafted, intricate tale woven through with themes of family, loss, betrayal and self discovery. A perfect winter fantasy read!

Highly reccommend for fans of A Starless Sea and Ink Blood Sister Scribe.

The City of Stardust was a really wonderfully written book. The prose was perfect for the tale, and it felt grounded in reality while still maintaining a whimsical quality. I love this style of writing so much. It was pacy and descriptive and just wonderful.

The plot was really interesting and engaging too. We follow Violet Everly, on a quest to find her mother and break a generational curse that lies upon her family. We have magical doorways, astral gods and a hidden city - delicious plot points that were great to uncover. The world we have in The City of Stardust is really unique to others I have read as well.

Where it falls a little flat for me, is with Violet herself. We never really get to know her outside of the plot. Her development as a character was so entwined with the plot that she didn't get a whole lot of development outside of it. There were glimmers of courage and determination, but they were swallowed by the overarching plot advancement.

However, overall I did really enjoy this novel, and it works excellently as a standalone. I'd be very interested to see what the author comes out with next for sure!

City of Stardust
I’m always keen to read new stand-alone fantasy and the premise of this one sounded fascinating. However, sadly it didn’t really work for me.
The plot was interesting. Violet Everly has been kept secluded by her uncles after her mother disappeared. Her mother went out to try and break the family curse but has never returned. We don’t know exactly what this curse is or why it exists but it will have serious consequences for Violet. She makes the decision to go out into the world and search for her mother. We get hints of magic and other worlds as well as a mysterious woman who comes to collect a debt.
Up until that point, I was really involved in the story but then it all fell a bit flat for me. I think that the main problem was that none of the characters really seemed to come alive. Violet was the main protagonist but I never really felt invested in her fate or the decisions that she made. There was a bit of romance, a lot of travelling from city to city and some strange gods but nothing that really gripped me. I was also a bit disappointed that the main plot line just seemed to fizzle out with no resolution.
I did enjoy some of the descriptive writing in the novel and I actually loved the epilogue but the book as a whole was a bit disappointing. I know that this is a debut novel and will be interested to see what the author produces next as there were some brilliant ideas and writing in this one.
Thank you as ever to Net Galley and the publishers, Hodder and Stoughton, for allowing me to read this ARC.

I went into this one quite blind it being an ARC, but the mystery contained within this book is gripping. The whimsical fantasy has been spun with lots of dark academia vibes.

Whilst dark academia isn't my favourite, I was gripped with the mystery within this book. It started off slow but soon built when Violet the FMC finally left home in search of her mother. To finally lift the curse from the Everlys.

Summers writes a captivating book of hidden magical worlds, winged bloodthirsty creatures and tight lipped secrets.

Unfortunately I liked all the secondary characters better than the FMC Violet - she was very naive (but somehow managed alot in a year, even though she'd not left her house for the first 18 year of her life). She was also very trusting of Aleksander, her love interest but also someone who betrayed and spied on her.

The gods and creatures in this book were original and well written, and made the book for me.

I highly recommend this book if you like dark academia vibes, a fantasy mystery and a plot the slowly unfurls.
I've seen it compared to Addie LaRue and His Dark Materials, (I agree with this one).

I had the pleasure of doing immersion reading (ebook and audiobook) of an ARC of The City of Stardust; I was taken from the very first moment. First things first - the audiobook narrator (Kitty Parker) has done a fantastic job - the tone of voice, the pacing, the accent … It all contributes in creating an incredibly immersive experience.
Being a debut, I went into this book quite blind but I could see pretty much immediately why people are referencing some of Erin Morgenstern and V.E Schwab works when talking about this title. Georgia Summers has created a world I saw, touched and smelled with every chapter. The atmosphere and the writing style have definitely been the things that captivated me the most, but this is not meant to take anything away from the characters: I will avoid any spoilers but all of them are relatable, and most importantly they “do make sense” and make understandable choices - aside from Violet (our protagonist) everyone is so “humanly gray”... so much I did not really have anyone to root for, not because I didn’t care, but because I would most likely be happy with any ending.
One additional element I want to mention that (for me) sets this book apart from many others is Georgia’s style. At times it is almost purple, yet remains very readable. She’s able to evoke incredible images and atmosphere in her reader’s mind without compromising the pace of the story - it is still a page turner. Do yourself a favor and embark on adventure … Just do not forget to light a vanilla candle and prepare a cup of coffee to keep you company along the way.