It deeply pains me to give a poor review, especially when I have been gifted an ARC.
I am at 45% of the audiobook that I started 2 months ago. I just can't fathom how after listening on 2 x speed I still have 10 hours to go - I simply cannot listen anymore.
The narrator is not the problem as their story telling is wonderful, I am seriously struggling to follow the story, plus I have to keep working out who's story I'm listening to and just hoping the narrator mentions their name. If the chapters were titled and then stated who was involved in the chapter, I feel that would really help to keep up.
There are too many characters to manage and in just under half of the book, I remember maybe 2 or 3 plot points.
I will try and continue the story in the new year with a physical read as opposed to audio but unfortunately this one will not be on my priority list.

I think this book had so much potential to be a 5 star. The world building was rich and the atmosphere that the author created was fantastic. The audiobook narrator did a fabulous job with the material, with each character having a distinct voice and the male voices didn't turn me off in ways that other narrators do.

However, I felt the story was slow and some of the chapters felt like padding. It could have been about 100 pages shorter and still had the same arcs and message. While I loved the world building, I did have to speed the audiobook up otherwise it felt like nothing had happened for a long time.

I felt some of the character development was flawed and this definitely felt like a young YA.

Overall, great audiobook with a book that needed to be a bit more.

The Sun and the Void is an immensely immersive fantasy based on South American history and mythology.

I absolutely adored this! Gabriella Romero Lacruz has fantastically rich world building with stunning depictions of this alternate world. I cannot emphasise enough how beautiful and lush this prose is. I appreciate this may slow the story down for some, but I love this writing style.

I was blown away by the characterisations and adored the narrator with her ability to breathe life into these characters. We have a dual POV from Reina and Ava; I really enjoyed watching how their worlds collide and seeing how their lives become intertwined. I genuinely cannot wait for the next book and to see how this series progresses.

I would highly, highly recommend this to lovers of high fantasy!

A really interesting fantasy story. This was definitely more marathon than sprint but I didn't want to speed up the narration and lose the richness of the descriptions. I liked most of the characters (except the ones you aren't supposed to like), I think Eva was my favourite. The ending surprised me, I wonder what will become of the characters in the sequel. I do kind of hope Celeste is less prominent in the next one or that Reina gets some self respect.

I thought the narrator was good, I can't verify if her pronunciation of names or places was correc, but they convinced me. I did think Reina's voice was a bit weird but I got used to it.

Tedious, dry fantasy – but brilliantly narrated.

I think if I was solely reading this in book form I would've struggled to finish. The Sun and the Void is vividly written and richly rendered – most of the time to its detriment. I would read several chapters and feel like the story had gone nowhere, especially at the beginning, because the story is so intricately detailed that it feels unnecessary. I wasn't invested in the world-building or the characters, and although some of the twists were interesting on principle the book doesn't manage to continue that momentum in a way that compelled me to read.

I will say, however, that despite the plodding pace, forgettable characters and tepid story, Lucy Walker-Evans' narration kept me interested. She might be the best narrator I've ever heard in an audiobook, using a variety of pitch, tone, accent and pace to diversify her character voices and keep them audibly distinctive. Her male character voices weren't grating to listen to, and you know who's speaking purely by how she speaks. Ursulina was my favourite, her Bridgerton Lady Danbury-esque voice was brilliant and added so much charm and character to her.

I just don't think this story was for me overall, but the narration bumped up my rating. If you're going to try this book, do it in audio format.

This audiobook was a good listen. I especially loved how different the voices sometimes were. I struggle with paying attention sometimes and this helped immensely with keeping up who is who and what is happening. I really enjoyed the story as well. Will recommend it to my friends!

Audiobook review: DNF at 39%. While I like the concept of this book and think the world has great potential, the MCs were so insufferable and boring. The voice created for Reina made her seem like she didn't have a clue what was going on half the time. The voice for Ava made her sound hysterical.
Sadly i think that took away a LOT from the book and made it unenjoyable.

DNF - Couldn't get into this book at all. It started very bland and didn't build at all. Gave up at 10%

DNF'd at 25% - the 1 star is only because it won't let me select no stars on here

I was completely lost with what was going on in the 100+ pages I managed to read, the pacing was slow and there was too much going on to not be giving the reader any actual plot progression. I was intrigued by this originally because I saw it was sapphic, but so far there's no sign of any potential romance (not even a slow burn), and looking at some other reviews this is practically non-existent, so obviously misleading marketing to try and get sales - I'm glad I did not purchase a copy of this and I won't be recommending it

enjoyed this audiobook, good job on the narration, however the story didn't grip me as much as I had hoped so. It reminded me a lot of Grishaverse, and I struggled to move past that to be honest, but the writing was quite good and the plot enganging.
recommended

Sometimes I think books get published because they fill a hole in the publishing world, not because they are good. This is South American saphic fantasy, and while I, in general, want more diverse books, I also want them to be amazing. And overall this was just quite mid.

Excellent read! Really creative was very easy to submerge myself in their world and feel like I was one of
The characters

I just finished this and really enjoyed it (3.5 stars). I think Romero Lacruz did a fantastic job writing each character and giving them dimension in a way that was new and fresh. I can tell this is the first book in a series because of the time spent on the worldbuilding aspects, which is really useful if I get my hands on the second. I do think some books are better read on paper than on audiobook. With the audiobook, I just felt myself get lost with the different names, characters, and timelines in a way that I don't normally get confused. I don't think it's a narrator issue as her pacing was good and clear, but I think just how similar things sound on the audiobook may mean that for processing purposes, I would read it physically next time.

Regardless, I really enjoyed the book and would definitely be open to reading the second.

I think this book has potential, especially as a rare Latinx and LGBTQIA+ fantasy, but I kept losing track of which character was which (unusual for me) and the pacing is extremely slow for the pay off you get. I think the audio narrator does an excellent job of making some very two dimensional characters into people. I don't particularly mind non-specific magical infrastructures but I think the editing of this book makes it come across as though the author isn't quite sure where the book is going. Not for me but I would definitely try another book by the author once they've written a couple more novels.

The Sun and The Void by Gabriela Romero Lacruz and narrated by Lucy Walker-Evans is an initially challenging but ultimately invigorating novel, beautifully read by Lucy Walker-Evans

Opulent, epic storylines entwine to create a beautiful fantasy based in South America. Absolutely gripping and I look forward to seeing where the story goes in the sequel

Thank you to Netgalley, Bonnier UK Audio | Twelve Point, the author Gabriela Romero Lacruz and narrator Lucy Walker-Evans for this wonderful ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

This book was a hell of a lot longer than it needed to be. If it was more concise and punchy, I definitely would have enjoyed it more and given it a higher rating, but the needless repetition and lengthy descriptions killed it for me.

I wasn’t convinced by Reina or Eva as protagonists. They were dragged around by the plot and lacked very little agency. Reina in particular actually became frustrating as she loathed herself so much, she was easily manipulated, and none of it was a surprise. At the end, the book read as though we should be shocked at what was needed for the ceremony, and yet it was completely anticipated to everyone except Reina. It fell flat and I wasn’t really impressed.

Considering how often it’s referred to, there was little information about the magic system and what is/isn’t possible with it. The concept of conducting magic through metal conduits is super interesting, and even though it was repeatedly discussed, very little progress was made in terms of expanding its limits. There was no way of knowing what was or wasn’t possible, so when big unforeseen magical events occurred, it didn’t feel exciting. How is the reader supposed to know it’s a big deal if it hasn’t been built up to be one?

I was also anticipating more when it came to the sapphic/queer element of the story, but instead, queerness was used for shock value. Oh my gosh, that character is actually gay?!?!! Okay, cool. You could have picked a better reason for her to behave the way she does instead of making sexuality the punchline.

However, I really did love the world building, and Venezuelan mythology and culture isn’t something I’ve come across before. The conflict between the gods was interesting and I was pretty engaged towards the end, even if it was insanely predictable. I was just really disappointed by the rest of it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bonnier Audio for the opportunity to listen to this arc!

I found The Sun and the Void to be a novel with great potential, but which resulted in an unbalanced and, at times, frustrating reading experience.
There were aspects of this novel which I initially found charming that sadly started to wear thin over the 500-plus pages and 17 hours of audiobook. There's some rich world-building in places, and the premise and setting held such promise. At first, I quite enjoyed the slow pacing, as I thought it would give us more time to get to know the characters and setting - however, the magic system remains unclarified, and the characters fall somewhat flat. The plot, despite being quite sparse, can be hard to keep track of due to this - who is where, and doing what, often felt convoluted and difficult to parse. The narrative voice is likewise unbalanced - at times, I felt really enveloped and enjoyed the language choices. At others, however, I found the writing style to verge on intolerable. This sadly carried through to the narration of the audiobook - some choices for character's voices were a little on-the-nose. Continuing the unbalanced theme, this reads like YA but is contrastingly quite dark and graphically violent in places in a manner which felt jarring.
Although disappointed by this instalment, I'm still tempted to read on in the series - it felt like Romero Lacruz's writing was developing across the course of the novel (a sure sign that a tighter edit could have worked wonders).
2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

Many Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing the Audio review copy in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
As a confession, I already own this physical book but when reading the physical copy I couldn’t get into the book as I found all the Spanish words distracting, so I was delighted to receive this as an audiobook, and I’m so pleased that I did as it was so much easier to immersive myself in the story. The narrator was fantastic at pronouncing the Spanish words, but I hated and I mean hated her portrayal of Reinas voice, which I found far too deep and breathy.
I didn’t find the worldbuilding that strong in this book and had huge holes in the plot for the different species. The book was set over a small continent but didn’t give any information on the world as a whole. The magic system was interesting however, and I would have liked for this to have been explored more. There are a lot of things going on in this book, political intrigue, myths and gods, fantasy elements, racism and speciesism, but I just couldn’t connect with the characters, none of them were particularly likeable, especially Reina, when she started helping to sacrifice babies.
Overall, I enjoyed the audiobook, but I probably wouldn’t buy the sequel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bonnier UK Audio for the ARC

I liked the worldbuilding in the book. It was fleshed out and good. The characters were ok, but I couldn't connect with any of them, perhaps because I listened to it as an audiobook. I think I would've liked it more if a read a physical copy.

I was excited to read this book - it's an unusual premise and represents the LGBTQIA+ latam community, which is rare in the genre, but it didn't meet expectations.

The story itself is an interesting premise but to work it relies heavily on Reina's naivety (dare I say stupidity), and it made her character incredibly irritating. For me that disrupted the whole of the rest of the narrative. Eva was better, but I didn't feel like there was enough character development on that side of the story, and I would have wanted more. The relationship at the end was totally unbelievable - no one in their right mind would forgive that betrayal and behaviour (although maybe that's the point).

It could be tightened with another round of edits but I feel like previous edits may have damaged the narrative and flow irrevocably.

I would have DNF'd this book at 5% if I wasn't reviewing it.