Review: The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

After a glowing 4,5 star review for The Serpent and the Wings of Night, I report that - though it breaks my heart to say this - The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King, the second installment in the Crowns of Nyaxia series, was a very disappointing read. In spite of its promising first book, issues with plot and pacing made this sequel fall short for me.

Non-Spoiler Review:

The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent deals with the aftermath of the gruesome events that took place at the end of The Serpent and the Wings of Night. Oraya has to deal with witnessing the death of her father and the host of unanswered questions that leaves her with. Raihn struggles with being the new King of Obitraes, and the doubts of the nobles who remember him only as a slave. While Raihn keeps Oraya prisoner inside the castle, she resolves to escape and regroup with the Hiaj fighters still loyal to her father to ultimately take back her throne. As Raihn fights to maintain his rule, he soon finds out that if he wants to win Oraya's love back, he has to walk a rocky path to redemption.

While the premise sounds promising enough, the execution is problematic. I struggled to connect with Oraya's motivation and therefore found it hard to root for her. Since Raihn had made some horrible decisions, and wasn't immediately learning from them, it wasn't easy to root for him either. I was left unengaged and indifferent to large chunks of the plot, and therefore the climax lacked much-needed punch.

Another part of the problem, to me, was the pacing. I found myself demotivated while reading and put off reading for a while - something that definitely didn't happen while reading The Serpent and the Wings of Night, which read like a train. The fight-to-the-death tournament was an excellent plot that made for high stakes, logical pacing, and a lot of action. Without such a tournament in the sequel, the pacing was off. When the plot did manage to catch momentum, issues with the pacing took the speed right off. Of course, a story works with moments high-intensity action and moments of low intensity and little action, but the idea is to make them flow into each other in a way that feels natural. This wasn't always the case.

The character development was well-done, however, and I have to give the book props for that. It didn't shy away from complicated relationships with contradictory feelings, and this was one of the redeeming qualities to the story. The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King did manage to come to a satisfying conclusion in the end.

Spoiler review:

-The Plot

The main critique, for me, is that a large part of the plot felt incredibly meaningless. This wasn't the case in the first novel. Why? Because the reader is taken on a journey with our MC, Oraya, who has cowered all her life in fear of vampires. Who has taught herself to fight, but who is still so vulnerable. Her motivation for taking part in the Kejari is well-illustrated and demonstrated. That's why we want her to win.

Now, with the sequel, the storyline follows Oraya as she mourns her father - whom she still harbors both loving and hateful feelings for - and tries to take back what's hers and fight for her throne.

Wait. Fight for her throne?

See, that's where I get lost. Because within this world, it has been made quite clear that Nyaxia likes her people squabbling. Consequently, the rule of Obitraes is based on whoever grabs power by killing their way through a court. Her father Vincent did just that, ending Rishan rule, and more; he was able to keep the ruling seat for a very long period without being overthrown.

This complicates how inheritance plays into this monarchy. Apparently, Oraya feels entitled to the throne because it used to belong to her father. However, the concept of "whoever is mighty and reckless enough to rule, rules" complicates this idea of the throne being a birthright. It is talked about how family, especially children, become a threat to rulers, since they can kill their parents and then take their throne. Weakening your children is said to be a common practice in order to avoid this. Even so, there has also been talk of different houses ruling at different times. In any case, if you want to rule Obitraes, you have to prove yourself by killing the current King or Queen.

When Raihn does so by killing Vincent, Oraya still feels entitled to the throne. I find it hard to follow her in this sentiment, because this event - someone of another house killing a ruler of a different house and therefore shifting the power to the other house - isn't exactly something Obitraes has never seen before. Now that Raihn has taken the throne, meaning that the Rishan now rule, doesn't that make her claim to the throne null? Because if rule changes from house to house based on whomever stages the best coup, then aren't there a lot of vampires who can lay a claim to the throne? Heirs from back when the Rishan ruled, or the Bloodborn? What makes her claim stronger, save for the fact that Vincent's rule was the most recent one before it was overthrown?

Furthermore, for as far as we know, Oraya has never thought much about the idea of ruling herself one day. After all, her father was the immortal one - and she, until very recently, wasn't even aware she shared blood with Vincent at all. Moreover, she has seen with her own eyes the target being the King or Queen of Obitraes puts on your back. Your rule is only as strong as your ability to keep it.

So my point is: why does she have an interest in the throne at all?

The answer could be so simple. Because she wants a world in which humans aren't treated like livestock. She wants to make this world safer for them. She has a vision for a better Obitraes and she wants to put it into action. She feels like she owes it to Ilana, to herself. Humans deserve a place in this world without being preyed upon.

This motivation makes sense. This motivation, I can follow. This motivation, I'd even admire. Except, here's the problem: Carissa Broadbent never goes into Oraya's motivation for wanting to take the throne. She just says it's her Kingdom, and leaves it at that.

And that leaves me with so little interest in watching her take it. I don't care if she believes it's her kingdom - that's an ancient, horrible sentiment. It makes her no different than all the other blood-hungry vampires vying for the throne. They probably think they're entitled to it too. Birthright is such a hollow, meaningless excuse. But Oraya still uses it.

I believe Oraya's intent of making Obitraes a better place is there; however, it's mentioned when she speaks to Acaeja, all the way near the end of the climax. It's hidden near the end when her good motivation should be front and center from the very beginning of the book. And this could even bring much more tension between Oraya and Raihn. If he's capable of killing Oraya's father, of locking her up like an animal, and after everything that he's done to her, how is she supposed to believe Raihn is going to be a good ruler for Obitraes? This only makes sense, because throughout the beginning of the book it's made quite plain that Oraya wants to take the throne from Raihn, but it's never addressed why. How come she desires to be Queen of Obitraes so bad that she'd kill Raihn for it, something she knows would scar her forever?

Because of the lack of a sensible motivation, I didn't care about the war. I didn't care about retaking this throne. I wasn't engaged in the plot at all, and I sure as hell wasn't rooting for Oraya to take the throne because it "belonged to her".

Because of all of this, the battle at the climax held little to no significance, and didn't feel like much of a grand climax at all.

-The Pacing

Another big problem, to me, was the pacing of this novel. This is not to say that there wasn't enough action, just very badly timed action. Or the sudden coming to a halt of action when it's just picked up speed. This was detrimental to my reading experience. Build-up and pay-off are so important. In this novel, it mostly went wrong in the pay-off part. Take, for instance, the moment Raihn gets betrayed and Oraya saves him. They arrive at Raihn's personal, humble apartment, narrowly escaping death, and Raihn is very badly injured. Someone poisoned him, betrayed him and then overthrew his rule.

What do you do in such a situation? Do you A. take a beat and rest (because, you know, you did almost die and you're very much wounded), B. seek a healer, C. talk it through to figure out who it was that betrayed you, D. make sure you weren't followed, E. come up with a plan to take revenge, or F. have sex?

Broadbent chose option F. And it's not just that Oraya and Raihn have sex while he's injured; they take their sweet time. The scene is long, takes up multiple pages, and completely brings the plot, which has just caught speed and taken an interesting turn, to an abrupt halt.

I know it can't help that I'm no particular fan of spicy scenes to begin with, but man, this was so frustrating. Broadbent is half-aware that they're having sex while Raihn is still trying to recover from almost dying not even half an hour ago, and says something about him not being able to make love to her "properly" like this.

The same vibes I got from Poppy and Casteel sleeping together in a carriage in the middle of a full-scale battlefield in, well, I don't even remember which book it was. Probably book two, because I stopped reading after that. It gets to a point where it's almost disrespectful. Are you taking your story seriously at all? How do you expect me to?

+- Raihn

We have to, of course, talk about the elephant in the room that is the romance. First off, it was way less enjoyable for me than the romance in The Serpent and the Wings of Night. Raihn makes the phenomenal mistake of killing Oraya's father, then imprisons her in a place that used to be her home and forces her to marry him. And he does all of this after she uses her Kejari wish to revive him.

There are scenes in which Raihn hears Oraya cry, grieving her father, and it quite obviously pains him. There is an instance in which he realizes that forcing Oraya kill him was also traumatizing for her - add that to the seemingly endless list of mistakes. He does some things to try to make it right, like finding out details about her past, saving her from her evil cousin, making her realize she has wings, and the promise of letting her go. He also pretty much gives his life for their shared goal of defeating the Bloodborn army. Raihn realizing and coming to terms with his mistakes was well done, but even though Oraya could still fall for him after everything. I... couldn't. The second chance trope is just not it for me, it never has been. So this is, perhaps, a question of personal taste. But being with the person who killed your father... Complicated as your relationship to your father may have been, he was still your father. It causes such a breach in trust. I think any other person would've needed more time to regain that trust.

+The Redeeming Qualities

I'm aware this has been a pretty scathing review so far. Before I'd finished the novel completely, I was convinced this would be a 2 star rating. But then Broadbent surprised me during the climax. No, I'm not talking about the battle scene that wasn't very epic because I didn't care about it much. I'm talking about Oraya having to face her grief and her father in order to find God Blood.

This scene answered questions that had remained a mystery for a very long time. I hadn't expected answers to these questions at all, to be honest, because Oraya, though making clear she wondered about them, wasn't actively looking for them. Regardless, these answers made a lot clear. Vincent was a very flawed being. He lied, he deceived, he killed. Despite his many faults, however, his humanity shone through the love he had for his daughter. And in spite of his faults, Oraya could look him in the eye and tell him she loved him without necessarily forgiving him for all he'd done wrong. Grief would surely follow her around for a long time, but at least she found the closure required to put her doubts to bed and move forward. Therein lies the true character development of the novel; Oraya coming to terms with the death and lies of her father. Though Broadbent failed to incorporate this meaningfully into the plot, she at least managed to write a fulfilling end to Oraya's character arc.

Conclusion

With a few tweaks, this could have been a great sequel. Had Oraya had a better worked-out and more noble motivation for seeking to reclaim the Nightborn throne, I might have felt more connected to the plot. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case, and the odd timing of some of the spice scenes certainly didn't help the situation. Somehow, this installment just didn't live up to the same standard as its predecessor, which gave great food for thought. There was little of that here.

Final rating: 3☆

Goodreads average rating: 4,2☆