The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King (Crowns of Nyaxia Book 2)

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The House of Night, too, is surrounded by enemies. Raihn’s own nobles are none too eager to accept a Turned king, especially one who was once a slave. And the House of Blood digs their claws into the kingdom, threatening to tear it apart from the inside. Oraya has so many conflicted feelings when it comes to Rhain and Vincent, and that made her SO relatable. It’s so much more complicated than grief and hate. She hates Rhain for his lies and the fact that he killed Vincent, but at the same time she knows that whatever they shared during the tournament was real, despite all the other lies and half-truths. She is rational enough to see that he did care for her then and still does now. She knows that, and it makes it harder for her to hate him, which in turn makes her angry at herself for not being able to simply hate him and kill him. in the last book, raihn kept saving her at the last minute and it grated my nerves bc this girl was the only human among so many vampires and she fought them all by herself, but then we met raihn and he kept saving her when it was def not needed😒 but in this book, she was doing all the saving and killing, as she should 👸🏻

Power hurts. It requires sacrifice. Do you want to change this world, little serpent? Climb the bars until you’re so high no one can catch you." His shitty interludes made me wanna take a lovely lovely bath with my toaster. We already walked through his story in the first book, those chapters in this book were unnecessary not to mention annoying. OKAY WE GET IT, YOU RE SAD AND POETIC AND YOU CRY ALL THE TIME. WOO-HOO POOR RAIHN. It was also so weird that he kept thinking about his ex all the damn time. Like, are you sure you are in love with Oraya? The things you’ve seen here have so tainted your image of me? I meant to give this place all my greatest achievements, my greatest ambitions. Instead, it became a monument to all my greatest mistakes.” After Lilith and Vale’s novella, I expected to see them more but they barely had any scenes which was disappointing. (I also suggest that we get a novella like Six Scorched Roses about Vincent and Alana’s past. It would be beautiful and devastating.)This book also uses the same plot devices of the first book, almost exactly the same. I’m sorry but that’s lazy writing. Now she is left with no choice but to marry him to stand a chance against a kingdom full of vampires who want to kill her. Warning! This review will involve a lot of cursing and spoilers for the first book. The first portion of the review will be spoiler free, the second part will involve minor and big spoilers for this book but I’ll put up multiple warnings before that part so you can avoid it. (Honestly, you should let me spoil this book for you and save you the trouble because it is not worth it.) Technicalities, really. Overall, I was very satisfied with all of this, and I'd read it again if I wasn't so afraid of my TBR murdering me in my sleep.

Vincent had ruined me. He had saved me. He had loved me. He had stifled me. He had manipulated me. He had made me everything that I was. Everything that I could be. Even the greatest parts of my power, the parts he never wanted me to find, were his. And now here I was, poring over every wound he gave me. And no matter how much they hurt, I never wanted them to heal, because they were his. And I missed him too much to hate him the way I wanted to.”

Open Library

First I was wondering how the author would keep me interested as much as in the first book without the deadly competition at the heart of the story. I am a big fan of competitions in books so I dreaded the sequel. I honestly don’t know what happened to Mische, she was completely stripped of any and all personality traits. She just popped then and there to smile and nothing else. We can take her scenes out of this book and nothing would change. In case you've read it already, don't care about spoilers and/or about the book in general, welcome to my review.

Overall, “The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King” is a thrilling and engaging fantasy novel that will appeal to fans of the genre. With its strong characters, intricate plot, and vivid descriptions, the book is a must-read for anyone who loves a good adventure story. I read the Serpent and the Wings of Night earlier this year and absolutely loved it and had really high hopes for this one- and it DEFINITELY lived up to them bc I freaking devoured this book 😩😩 It's not QUITE as good as the first one but it was still SUCH a good sequel 🤭🤭❤️❤️ i highly highly recommend this entire duet, because the writing, the characters, the plot and VINCENT my love are what made this so different from other fantasies. 💗the way Oraya was shook after all the events that took place near the end of the previous book. she just broke after all that. but then, she rose from the ashes and then slowly claimed herself, and everything that was meant to be hers. i loved her so much. And the grovelling and begging by Raihn was just everything! He just ruined me because the way he begged Oraya just so he could worship her as a goddess as a queen was just 😭🤌 i enjoyed oraya's character more in this one (she kind of glowed up throughout the story, yay!), all of the characters, actually--they felt remarkably multifaceted, which i think is where carissa shines. the world building was decent, even if the settings are lovely, but her characters are funny, likable, and still complex.