I fear I waited too long to read this one because I genuinely don't care for it anymore. I probably should have re-read the first one so I could remember more than just the basic plot. I read the first 1/3 and decided to skim the rest to know how it ends. I think it had a good ending but I unfortunately didn't have any emotional investment in these characters :)

Real sad about it - I might re-read this duology in one go at some point to get the full experience :)

Amelie Wen Zhao is a master at writing, she is so brilliant and capturing the reader as well as weaving a mysterious tale of suspense and romance and intrigue. I read this back in Feb 2024 so the details are hazy but I do remember being stunned by this book and I couldn't put it down! I was so sad to miss out on the Illumicrate copy, I'll hunt it down some day! I'm really looking forward to Amelie's next book.

Amelie Wen Zhao's writing is lyrical and poetic, building the descriptors beautifully.

Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White picks right up where Song of Silver, Flame of Night ended which is something that some authors find hard to do without it being a little disjointed. Not in this case.

I feel as though this ended well but could have done with being more fleshed out so maybe a trilogy would have been better than a duology? Either way, I'm excited to see what this author does next!

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Voyager for this eARC.

I absolutely loved Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, so I was super excited to jump into this sequel! This book picks up right where the first book left off. Lan is determined to fulfil her mother’s mission and destroy the Demon Gods, and Zen is willing to sacrifice his soul to them if it means saving the kingdom.

Just like the first book in the duology, Amélie Wen Zhao’s writing is lyrical and poetic, and the world-building was magical and lush. The new settings that were introduced were described beautifully and vividly.

I also really enjoyed the characters. Although they are both on different paths, they have the same ultimate goal. I loved the pages where they were interacting, and wish we got a little more of them together!

While I enjoyed the overall plot, I did find the first two thirds of the book to be a little slow. However, the last third of the book really picked up, and I did not see the ending coming!

Part of me wishes that this series was a trilogy instead of a duology. An extra book would have allowed more character development and fleshed out other aspects of the story.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and can’t wait to read whatever this author releases next! Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This is a great conclusion to a great start of the series. The first book was absolutely brilliant and this book is a worthy successor. Though I did find the pacing odd at times, maybe due to it being a duology instead of a trilogy, overall I have no complaints from this. Absolutely stunning!!

I absolutely loved book one and devoured it in a day, but book two was a little more slow paced to begin with and so it didn’t quite grab my attention in the same way.

I love a dual point of view and the fact that we got to see both Lan and Zen grow up and change even more, especially in tandem with the explorations of colonisation and oppression with both the Elantians and the imperial family, but while the pace definitely picked up in the second half - which went at breakneck speed - the first half felt much more like an info-dump, meaning it dragged out a little too much for me.

I think this series would have made a brilliant trilogy, which might have sorted the pacing issues out, but overall I did feel like this was a great conclusion to their story and I look forward to reading more by this author in the future.

Being absolutely OBSESSED with book one I couldn't wait to devour this!
Felt so lucky to have gotten an arc and it didn't dissapoint at all!
Just as lyrically beautiful as the first and had me hooked the whole time. Amelie has a way of writing that encaptures you and doesn't let you go!

Just as good as the first! I was gripped from the start! Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

WOW. This was a fantastic conclusion to an amazing fantasy duology, and whilst I enjoyed book one, I loved this one every bit as much, if not more, which is always hard to do for a sequel but I think the author did a fantastic job of making both books equally captivating and the characters really compelling. I would definitely recommend this duology to any fantasy fans or fans of the wuxia/xianxia genres.

This is what I wrote reviewing the first installment and I can only confirm my opinion. To be honest this one is even better:
Amélie Wen Zhao writes gripping and intriguing fantasy stories and this one is excellent.
It kept me hooked and i was fascinated by the world building, the characters, and the well developed plot.
It's a treat, read it
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

A good sequel.
This book was not bad, but, overall, quite predictable. Half of it was a traveling story where nothing came hard to the characters: they look for answers, here is the answer, they need to get somewhere, here is a seal to get there. The last part felt unnecessarily drawn out.
The book had a similar problem to book 1: Lan dreaming of her fantastic time back at the school, when in fact she stayed there a total of one month, Lan dreaming back on her childhood, where basically in book 1 she clearly said she remembered very little? The book seemed to want to have a nostalgia effect without doing any of the groundwork. A good finale, but I am not sure I will ever want to re-read it.

Wow, I was not expecting to like this series as much as I did. It did not seem as something that I woul pick but I am so glad I did. So thank you Illumicrate for making a beautiful special edition of this book which lead to me reading it.
This series was so well written. It kept me captivated and at the edge of my seat. Amelie did an excellent job creating this world, so rich and beautiful, and she was able to describe it with so much detail that I felt like I was there.
The plot was so good. It gave Throne of Glass vibes. Our main character go through such a spectacular journey with so most danger and awesomeness.
and let me not forget our main characters. I completely loved them. Their personalities and their love story was just so beautifully crafted. I am still hurting from this ending. I have all my hope that things would turn out different than what they did, but I love that Amelie did not bend the rules just because they were the main characters.

If you are thinking about picking this series 2 things to keep in mind is that there is a lot of world building, sometimes feel like a lot of info dumping and it can also get repetitive with some passages, phrases and explanations. But still would totally recommend.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this arc!

First up, 5-star read and a new fave duology.

As with Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, this story is told through the two main points of view of Lan and Zen, and it kicks off right after the devastating ending to book one.

Survivors have been split into two groups, each essentially being led by Zen and Lan. Zen is as determined as ever to use the power of his Demon God to defeat the Elantians, whilst Lan still believes that they should be destroyed.

Zen is struggling from early on, with his Demon God taking more and more control as he keeps calling him, which leads him in a desperate search to try regain power over his own body.

Lan is still seeking the remaining Demon Gods, but ends up finding something that changes the course of things substantially in her efforts.

Balance is yet another key theme to the story, as is that of power and the consequences that can arise from seeking it too much.

The ending destroyed me, but overall this was just a brilliant duology and if you enjoy stories influenced by Chinese mythology then this a must read! 🫶🏻❤️‍🔥

Wow oh wow, what a ride.

I was initially slightly nervous going in to this one, I couldn’t believe it was shorter than the first book and has so much story left to wrap up. And then, as I got towards the end with 50 pages ish left and so much to be resolved, my wariness increased. But I should’ve known better, and to always trust Amélie Wen Zhao for the ending was excellent even if there was a few things I wish were different!

This was an excellent sequel and picked up the story and arcs leftover from the first book so well. I really loved how we got to explore more of the world (the world building is fantastic!), the deep and rich history, and the different mythologies come in to play. It just took all the elements from the first book and continued to expand on them.

I liked this duology a lot, and I’m excited for Zhao’s next book!

I so wanted to enjoy this more! The world is lush and beautiful, but something about the story fell flat for me and I struggled to engage. There were passages I enjoyed though, and I'm sure this is a great read for many others

Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White by Amélie Wen Zhao is the second book in the Song of the Last Kingdom Series.
 
After I liked the first book, I was very intrigued how this story continued. This sequel starts out very slow and there were a few times where it was almost boring to me. It only picks up in the last third when you get to the battle for the Last Kingdom and that was definitely the most exciting part in this book. In general, the plot was very simple and predictable to me.
 
The characters had a lot of potential, but they lacked some growth like Zen. Zen and Song Lian had so many beautiful and intimate moments in the first book and unfortunately it was overshadowed by the plot and preparation for battle in this book. The romance is very tender and delicate, and I would have liked to see more of it and especially the ending was not fully satisfying to me.
 
Overall, I preferred the first book in this series, but if you like fantasy stories, this is still worth checking out. 3 stars.
 
(ARC kindly provided in exchange for a review.)

First I would like to say thanks to Netgalley for giving me early access to this book prior to release. All opinions on the book are my own.

This book picks up exactly where the first book left off, her mother killed and Lan is taking on her legacy of destroying the Demon Gods. Yet there are others searching for the Gods, Zen is willing to forfeit his soul if it means saving his kingdom (and the girl he loves). However their choices have separated them and only time will tell if their paths will cross or if their choices have separated them forever.

I would love to say this book was the perfect end to this duopoly, but personally I think this would have done better to be a trilogy. There were so many things jam packed into this book that some things were not fleshed out nearly enough for my liking. I am also pretty sure there was a villain mentioned in the first book that was non existent in this one as a new one was introduced.

The pacing is also off in this book, the first 2/3 of this book is quite slow and then the last third is so fast paced it’s hard to keep up with all the reveals that are being thrown at you, it does start to feel quite infodumpy in places just to ensure it had been wrapped up, which lessened the stakes. I definitely enjoyed the first book more than this one but it still had parts of the elements I loved - Chinese mythology and folklore, magic and mythical creatures which look adorable from the cover but are not so cute in the book.

Overall a fine book, I just wish we got more world building, character development and got more details to satisfy my political intrigue. Also the amount of times the ocarina is mentioned with time made me feel like I was reading the legend of Zelda

The second and final book in the duology. I was so excited to pick this up and find out how it ended as I loved the first one.

In the beginning the book is a little bit slow but the second half really picks up and has an action packed intense ending. This was well written and the world building continued with us finding a lot more of the background.

We get to see a lot more of Zen and Lan and their characters with the fight between what is right/good and what is bad/wrong. Plus the yearning between those two was so good.

Thank you to Netgalley, Harperfiction UK, and Amélie Wen Zhao for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls white is the conclusion to the Song of the Last Kingdom duology.

It is lyrical and atmospheric, and adventurous with some new characters for us to get to know. However, I did not feel any action really happened until the final chapters, and there was also quite a lot of information dumping which made parts of the book feel like a little bit of a struggle. I can't say this book was too memorable, although overall I would say I did enjoy reading.

There wasn't much further character building from the first book - which would usually be fine however the lack of other characters rather than the two main characters made this pretty noticeable. The way the characters talked and engaged with each other was very young, which felt odd with the themes of the book. Additionally, the original antagonist seemed to be a 'bad guy' just for the sake of being bad, there didn't seem to be any more depth to their motivations and I felt his demise to be a little anticlimactic in how quickly it all happened. Another antagonist who took his place in the second book and seemed to quickly become the main adversary which felt rushed.

The ending was bittersweet and did make me feel something. However overall, although I enjoyed it, it wont be a book that stays with me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

It was a bit strange, I liked the characters more in the first book as well as the setting. The plot was also a bit weak for me. I like the author's way of writing, but I couldn't get 100% into the story.