A review by jkreads
The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Carissa Broadbent has well and truly cemented herself as an auto-buy author for me (well, auto-download because her books are on KU) and this book re-confirmed that. This was the second book in the Nightborn duet and was a dual POV between our two main characters, Oraya and Raihn.

I really enjoyed the time taken to flesh out the relationship between the two main characters, and the dual POV really helped with this. I also loved the further exploration of the world as the characters travelled outside the main city, as well as the lore and history of the world.

I loved the ending of this book - things felt resolved in terms of Raihn and Oraya’s relationship, but not the world as a whole. This is perfect for the way the series is structured, given that it is six books set in the same world but presented as three duologies, focusing on different main characters in each duet. I love this concept as when I read a multi-book fantasy series with good world-building and characters, I often wish I could explore certain parts of the world or storylines of side characters more. 

From what I can tell the next duet in this series will feature Mische more prominently, which I can’t wait for as I loved her character!