Name: The Ashes & The Star Cursed King
Series: Crowns of Nyaxia #2
Author: Carissa Broadbent
Publisher: Self-Published
Format: Kindle (through KU)
Genres: New Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal
Noted Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Vampires
Steam or Spice: Spice
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
Love is a sacrifice at the altar of power.
In the wake of the Kejari, everything Oraya once thought to be true has been destroyed. A prisoner in her own kingdom, grieving the only family she ever had, and reeling from a gutting betrayal, she no longer even knows the truth of her own blood. She’s left only with one certainty: she cannot trust anyone, least of all Raihn.
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.
When Raihn offers Oraya a secret alliance, taking the deal is her only chance at reclaiming her kingdom–and gaining her vengeance against the lover who betrayed her. But to do so, she’ll need to harness a devastating ancient power, intertwined with her father’s greatest secrets.
But with enemies closing in on all sides, nothing is as it seems. As she unravels her past and faces her future, Oraya finds herself forced to choose between the bloody reality of seizing power – and the devastating love that could be her downfall.
Review:
The Ashes & The Star Cursed King (long title!) is the second book in the Crowns of Nyaxia series – book two in the Nightborn Duet, and so there will be spoilers below for book 1, The Serpent and the Wings of Night.
We follow Oraya and Raihn as they navigate the new world they find themselves in following Oraya’s win of the Kejari – and subsequent wish she made to instead have Raihn win. It was really hard to see these two return to enemies following the ending of book 1 but it made total sense given that Raihn essentially kidnapped and held her hostage. I found myself spending the majority of the book unrealistically hoping that Oraya would magically get over the betrayal!
This year has been all about Carissa Broadbent for me – I have loved everything I read by her, with multiple of her books having been ‘six star reads’ as BookTok would call them, but The Ashes & The Star Cursed King didn’t quite make it into 5 star territory me. I feel like it struggled a bit on the pacing front which was really difficult for me because this isn’t something I’ve felt like Broadbent has struggled with in any of her other books.
So despite the struggle with pacing, I did find the story to be great. I enjoyed the plot reveals and the characters that we were introduced to were awesome (I can’t risk talking about the secondary characters that I liked because of spoilers – but some of the new ones were great additions to the cast of characters). And I mean, that ending!? I know I will be thinking about that ending for a while!
In Broadbents style, when the story ramped up, it ramped up and I find myself torn between reading the .5s and just holding out long enough for the next book in the series which follows Mische after some events that happened in this book – by the time this review comes out I will have made my mind up on what I’m reading because the next book comes out on November 19th!
Despite not enjoying the pacing, and the plot I just didn’t connect with quite in the same way as Book 1, and so this book is a very comfortable 4 star rating. It was a good ending to the Nightborn Duet and I will find myself hoping that Oraya and Raihn show up in the later books! Time will tell though!
“I’d spend a lifetime at the tip of your blade, and it would have been worth it.”
Reading With Tyler 
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