The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King (Crowns of Nyaxia, #2)

4.5

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5
Date finished; 05/02/23
Pages: 624
Series or Stand-alone: Series, Book 2
Genre: dark fantasy romance
First time or Reread: First time
Finished or DNF: Finished
Spice: 3
Steam: 3

Review:
This was a great sequel to book 1 and I'm always relieved when that happens. Nothing worse than loving a book only to have the next books be awful!

Oraya's confusion and mourning feel so realistic. It makes perfect sense to me that she's conflicted about her feeling for her father and Raihn. Her father lied to her and committed atrocities but Raihn killed him and despite all that she cant let go of loving and hating them both.

Raihn on the other hand suffers a lot from intruder syndrome and just plain not wanting to be the monster everyone expects him to be. He is also very conflicted but not as much about Oraya. Though he does learn some hard truths about how he treated her and I appreciate that in the writing.

Both characters see amazing development. And can i just get a "You fucking go girl" for Mishe. She went through something but still supported her friends.

Overall just loved this book and im ready for the next book (in 2024!!)

this book was a whole lot of nothing for being 600 (618, technically) pages. it could’ve been condensed down to 400 pages and it would’ve been probably even slightly better than this.

i did laugh occasionally and i did highlight some things, but it wasn’t enough for me to rate this any higher than two, in my opinion. the first book was SO good and held my attention so much but with this one, i found myself skimming a lot and being bored and unmotivated to continue it.

the things i didn’t like:
- i’m not sure what happened to oraya’s personality between the first book and this one but i was so disappointed that any time raihn even looked at her, she was like a whole other person even when she “hated” him (she never hated him, even though she should have.)
- didn’t need to be dual pov (i say this as a dual pov LOVER, make no mistake) because neither were distinguishable from each other and i could’ve been fooled into thinking it was all oraya’s pov if i weren’t paying attention, save for raihn mentioning his ex a billion times for some reason
- raihn please i’m begging for you to seek therapy. i’ll pay for it if you want.
- “there she is” is said or thought 33 times. if i never have to read that phrase again, it’ll be too soon

there’s probably more but the entire book blurred together for me so bad i genuinely can’t remember anything that happened.

i think i’m gonna take a break from the series for now and come back in the future because i can’t read another 600+ page book that’s full of nothing and i fear that the series is gonna further go downhill from here.

3.8/5

This is probably my least favorite book of the series, just because there is a lot more court and political drama than action in the first half.

MAKE SURE YOU READ SIX SCORCHED ROSES FIRST!!

4.5 rounded up to 5

The first half of this book was akin to middle book syndrome. It was recovery from book 1 but I just didn’t like some of the choices the book made. Once you hit 50% though, you’re in the solid. I absolutely loved raihn and Oraya! They have my heart!

I loved reading about Vale and Lilith as well as Mische (who I believe book 3 will be the POV of)

Clarissa made a fan of me so on to the next read

I really enjoyed the story and the characters. I don't want it to end.

Oh. My goddess. Another incredible, soul-crushing, heartbreaking, lovable, and beautiful story by Carissa Broadbent. She secured her spot on my automatic author buy list with the Serpent and the Wings of Night, and everything of hers that I have read since then has not disappointed- this book is no exception. I will say, the beginning is a little slow coming right off of the fast-paced edge that TSATWON had, but there was so much to unpack from that story.. the sudden change of pace going into this book finally forced you as the reader to reckon with all the trauma, emotions, and heartbreak from the events of first book with the main characters as they were. But when this book picked up the pace.. I was BEGGING for it to slow down again because it destroyed me. Far more than the first book. And I didn’t think that was possible

Mam problem z tą książką bo jak na prawie 700 stron to nie działo się tu za wiele albo działo się trochę ale czułam jakby było tego niewiele.

Tom 1 wciąż pozostaje lepszy bo po prostu było więcej rzeczywistej akcji, nie oczekiwałam również że Raihn okaże się takim simpem XD więc było dosyć śmiesznie ale przyjemnie

3.75⭐️

I found this started off diasppointingly slow - the first 50% seemed to drag on and on and I just wasn't invested in the story as I had been with the first book of this duet. The pacing was slow, the writing seemed slow and the story didn't really seem to go anywhere.

Once the 50% mark hit though, the pace picked up a lot and the story became more interesting and I enjoyed the characters like I had during book 1. I feel like the ending seemed a little rushed, like there was a lot of build up for a quick conclusion, but nevertheless I still enjoyed my experience reading and will recommend this duet to others I know who like this genre of book.

It took over TWO months for me to finish this book and you can blame Bauldr's Gate III for that. All I could think about was romancing Astarion. SORRY, BUT AT THE SAME TIME I'M NOT SORRY!
Overall, an entertaining ride, but I still enjoyed the first book more. This one felt a little lackluster and anticlimactic toward the end.
I'm also curious how the series will play out since we'll be leaving Oraya and Raihn behind (*sobs quietly*) to move to a new point of view. I can't really decide if I'm going to enjoy the shift or not.