Even the Darkest Stars

Even the Darkest Stars, Book 1

By: Heather Fawcett

Narrated by: Priya Ayyar

This is the first in a sweeping and action-packed debut fantasy duology loosely inspired by the early climbers of Mt. Everest - perfect for fans of Cindy Pon and Alison Goodman.

Kamzin has always dreamed of becoming one of the emperor’s royal explorers, the elite climbers tasked with mapping the wintry, mountainous empire and spying on its enemies. She knows she could be the best in the world, if only someone would give her a chance.

But everything changes when the mysterious and eccentric River Shara, the greatest explorer ever known, arrives in her village and demands to hire Kamzin - not her older sister Lusha, as everyone had expected - for his next expedition. This is Kamzin’s chance to prove herself - even though River’s mission to retrieve a rare talisman for the emperor means climbing Raksha, the tallest and deadliest mountain in the Aryas. Then Lusha sets off on her own mission to Raksha with a rival explorer who is determined to best River, and Kamzin must decide what’s most important to her: protecting her sister from the countless perils of the climb or beating her to the summit.

The challenges of climbing Raksha are unlike anything Kamzin expected - or prepared for - with avalanches, ice chasms, ghosts, and even worse at every turn. And as dark secrets are revealed, Kamzin must unravel the truth of their mission and of her companions - while surviving the deadliest climb she has ever faced.

©2017 Heather Fawcett (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

A bit more romance than I prefer

So I should preface that I am writing a series of reviews to reduce the unfinished books in my collection.

I got over halfway through this book. The plot was good enough to keep me from jumping ahead...but not good enough for me to finish the book.

Story - Good, Narrator- Not So…

I enjoyed the story and was able to follow the characters and culture fairly well but the reader had no emotion! I wouldn’t say it was monotone, but even my spouse, who is an avid audio book reader, commented on the lack of enthusiasm this Narrator has after listening for about 10 minutes!
The jury is out as to if I’m going to use a credit to purchase the next in the series.

*No spoilers * loved it

The performance was amazing . Priya did a wonderful job portraying the story. The story was captivating! It left you on a huge cliff hanger , hungry for more!

It's ok

I thought it was better than some of the reviews on Goodreads. I'm not sure if there were changes in the original version and what I listened to. Will I read the next one? Hmmm maybe not, I have more interest in working on my current TBR pile instead of continuing this.

Pros:
Setting - a bit different than what I typically read.

Love triangle - I wouldn't even call what I read a love triangle. I thought there were teeeeeeeeny tiiiiiiiinny maybe hints of romance. Which I was fine with, I don't want to read a love triangle in every YA book out there.


Cons:
The blurb about this "River Shara, demands to hire Kamzin - not her older sister".
Ok, that is a lie, there was no demanding, and there was no pitting sister against sister like you are lead to believe. The sister relationship doesn't even exist much.

Pet dragons....Glorified lamps

Some inconsistencies, one day she's a heavy sleeper, the next she's a light sleeper.

Great story, performance to be improved

Very well written story and it reflects the amount of research done by the author. Many good twists as well. Looking forward to the next book.

The narrator is quite smooth, but sounds very monotonous. Many a times I had to rewind to make sure who spoke a dialogue - the narrator needs to use distinctive voice tones and speaking styles for each character.

I love d the story, the narrator not so much

I am quickly becoming a huge fan of Heather Fawcett books, this is the fifth I have either read or listened to and I am not disappointed, even is not my favorite, I didn’t liked the style of the reader however, I feel lacked emotion, looking forward to start the next book in the series, I didn’t like it ended in a cliffhanger but it’s not the worst. I do recommend it. The good trump the bad in more than one ways.

It’s really not bad

It’s not bad. It fills out the formula. I wouldn’t call it good exactly... It’s just not incredibly gripping to be honest. I’m not moved by the characters. It could be because of the stories I have been listening to prior to getting to this one, but it just wasn’t enough for me personally.

boring narration

i regret spending money on this audiobook because of how unbelievably bland and lifeless the narration is. this is a book you are better off reading because the narration does a disservice to the writing.

Beautiful book but the plot falters in some place.

The scenery is beautiful and the magic and dragons were awesome, but the witch plot line didn't grab me. If the plot was adjusted to avoid them it would have been a 5 star read. Confusing at times but still beautiful.

This is the first of two books

and while every book can't be "Howl's Moving Castle" it’s actually not that bad.

It’s true: the dialogue & characterization comes off rather flat much of the time and often times it doesn’t feel like the individual voices of the characters are distinguishable from one another in both the writing and narration. And the romantic chemistry is eye-rollingly cliched at times but that's just YA for you, I've definitely read better selling YA books cringier than this. What keeps this book going is the world building, the adventure and action, and a little bit of the love triangle.

Listen, there's Witches. Shamans. Demons. Astronomy & Astrology. Mountain Climbing. Death, Danger, and Grievous injuries. and lots more intriguing fantasy stuff but I don't want to spoil it too hard.

If you're having doubts with this audiobook just know that this is the first of two and in the second book the plot DOES start to become a little more complex and the world more interesting and the characters more developed. Even the "too-perfect" unlikeable sister turned out to be way cooler in the second book, still a jerk but so smart and cool. I’m 2hrs from finishing the second book and so far it seems like a clear improvement on the first book from both the writer and the narrator.

It’s refreshing to have yet another fantasy writer drawing inspiration from a culture outside of “Ye olde European days” and even if there’s a lot of somewhat similar handsome young men and women running around in the story it’s actually a nice break from the norm in that many of them are brown, dark haired, freckled, tall, short and so on. Even the heroine is described multiple times as being squat, plump and sturdy with wild hair. I don't know but that feels like a bold choice to me and I like it!!

I like this author’s perspective and while the writing could benefit from some more artistry and a little more depth here and there I am excited to see how their voice develops in the coming years. I think there’s a lot of good elements here and as plodding as this first book started out I’m surprised that I’m actually kind of liking this story better than Elizabeth Lim’s comparable “Blood of Stars” series.