Stardust in Their Veins by Laura Sebastian

TL;DR: I wish I hadn’t waited so long on this one.
Source: NetGalley – thank you so much to the publisher!

Plot: The sisters continue to fight both against their mothers and for the kingdoms.
Characters: I mean. I liked them in the first book but there was a bit too much dragging out of inner thoughts in this one.
Setting: Not the focus but a good enough setting to make it work.
Fantasy: I did love the premise here but the lack of a hook and the exceptionally long feeling of the book took away from it.

Summary:

Princesses Beatriz and Daphne have lost their older sister, but their mother’s grand scheme of taking the continent of Vesteria is far from complete. With the country of Temarin now under the Empress’s control, only the nations of Cellaria and Friv remain free from her rule. What’s worse, an ominous prophecy has begun to shine through the constellations: the blood of stars and majesty spilled.

Usurped by conniving cousins Nico and Gigi, Beatriz fears for her life, while in icy Friv, Daphne continues her shaky alliance with the rebels even as she struggles to stay a step ahead of them. But when an unlikely ally offers Beatriz a deal, she finds herself back in her mother’s sights.

With enemies around every corner and the stars whispering of betrayal, Daphne and Beatriz can’t trust anyone–least of all each other. If they’ve learned anything, though, it’s that the Empress’s game is constantly changing. And the arrival of surprise visitors from Temarin just might tip the scales in the princesses’ favor… if they manage to avoid meeting their sister’s fate before they can make their next move.

Thoughts:

Sadly I think I ruined this for myself – to some degree. I don’t know that everything in this was perfect but I do wish I’d gotten to this sooner. This follows immediately after the incredibly punchy ending of Castles in Their Bones and you may expect that pace and event to have an big impact – you’d be wrong.

The pace on this is very slow, so much so that I wish we’d had a bit more editing. I though the previous book was the perfect length for what we got, but this one dragged on and on. We added a new voice, which possibly caused part of this, that sounded almost indistinguishable from the two views that already existed.

In addition the ending of the previous book had a huge event happen that should have affected several characters far more than it did. While I understand everyone processes grief differently I doubt almost completely ignoring that graphic and intense of an event is going to be a response.

Overall I won’t be continuing though based on other readers this could definitely be a series you’d enjoy if you like political style YA fantasy. There are strong notes, and perhaps this is a big case of second book syndrome. Unfortunately it’s enough of one that I’ll be stopping here.