ARC provided by the publisher through Edelweiss. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Jessie Mihalik’s space drama romance continues in the second book in her Consortium Rebellion trilogy Aurora Blazing.

Bianca von Hasenberg did her duty for High House von Hasenberg and ended up trapped in a terrible marriage. When her husband dies unexpectedly and leaves her a happy widow, she vows never to marry again. Instead, she uses her connections to save other young women. Information is power and Bianca has a network that would be the envy of the ‘verse – if anyone knew about it.

After an attack, Bianca’s oldest brother, the House von Hasenberg heir, disappears from Earth without a trace. Determined to find him, Bianca leaves against orders. When she refuses to return, her father ends Ian Bishop, the director of House von Hasenberg security, to haul her home like a recalcitrant child.

Bianca leaves Ian on a merry chase across the universe, but when their paths finally collide, she persuades him that they would be far more successful at finding her brother if they worked together. She will do anything to save her sibling, even if it means spending time alone on a small ship with the handsome, infuriating man who once broke her heart.

As clues lead them deep into rival House Rockhurst territory, Biana must decide if she can trust Ian with the one piece of information that could destroy her completely…

I fell in love with Jessie Mihalik debut Polaris Rising when I read it this year. It had everything I needed in a scif-fi romance: solid worldbuilding, take-no-prisoners action and a steamy romance. Ada and Locke burned the pages – falling into lust then to love all while they jump from planet to planet to escape their pursuers. I gobbled up their story and, greedy reader that I am, I naturally wanted more.

Aurora Blazing gave me that more.

The second book in the Consortium Rebellion trilogy, Aurora Blazing centers on Ada’s older sister, Bianca von Hasenberg, and House von Hasenberg’s director of security, Ian Bishop. Both characters were already introduced and played minor roles in Polaris Rising so readers who have read the first book will already be familiar with them.

I loved Bianca in PR and I grew to love her more in Aurora Blazing. She’s resourceful and intelligent and tough, but broken. It was clear even from the first few chapters of this installment that her marriage wasn’t just terrible, it was traumatic. Clues as to what her husband did to her are dropped throughout the whole book and when the final reveal came, it was equally horrifying. Her past took something from her, making Bianca question her own capabilities. She suffers and endures chronic pain from debilitating headaches, an aftermath of her dead husband’s experiments on her.

Bianca’s character development was one of the things I loved most about Aurora Blazing. She was only gaining some of her own back when AB opens – learning to trust herself again but still guarded, unwilling to let people back i. It was great watching her walls come down bit by bit, for her to reclaim what she lost. It was certainly satisfying (and so fun!) to see her finally stand up to her father.

Ian, meanwhile, took his time with me but, in the end, I grew to love him too. Hiding his own secrets, he is just as closed-off as Bianca. He was just so controlled and infuriatingly proper at the beginning that it felt so rewarding when his facade was finally chipped off.

Bianca and Ian’s romance is so different from Ada’s and Locke’s. Theirs was a slow burn, progressing a step at a time throughout the book. The tension between the two, however, was very much palpable even from page one. They have a shared past, one that is tackled in the book, that further complicated their feelings for one another. When they finally get together though, it was just so right. He and Bianca made a great team – different but similar in all the ways that matter. They’re both protective of the people they love and they will go down the line for them.

Readers who loved the trilogy’s first book will definitely find something in Aurora Blazing. It had everything I enjoyed in Polaris Rising – the political machinations, House politics and rivalries, the mystery of the High Houses’ defunct Genesis Project. The bond between the von Hasenberg siblings came out clearer in this book than in the last. It was definitely funny reading about Ferdinand and Benedict play their brother card against Ian. We also see quite a bit what the PR crew – Ada and Locke, Veronica and Rhys – has been up to. Readers also get a glimpse of the next feature couple of the trilogy – Catarina and Alex – so that’s definitely an exciting bit.

Fast-paced and action-filled, both lovers of sci-fi romance will fall in love with this story. The only drawback, I think, is that you have to read the series in order as you may miss a number of key details. It pays off big time though, so I don’t think that’s much of a sacrifice. I’m definitely in for the last leg of this trilogy. I already can’t wait to see how Catarina and Alex’s story plays out.

about the author jessie_mihalik_square JESSIE MIHALIK has a degree in Computer Science and a love of all things geeky. A software engineer by trade, Jessie now writes full time from her home in Texas. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing co-op video games with her husband, trying out new board games, or reading books pulled from her overflowing bookshelves.

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Title: Kingdom of Souls
Series: Kingdom of Souls #1
Author: Rena Barron
Publication Date: September 3, 2019
Publisher: HarperVoyager
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Content Warnings: Blood magic, self-injury for a ritual, challenging familial relationship, psychological torture, death of children, mind manipulation, animal possession, animal sacrifice (mentioned), violence
Get it: IndieBound | Book Depository | Barnes and Noble | Books-a-Million | Amazon | Kobo | Apple Books

ARC access provided by the publisher through NetGalley as part of the Fantastic Flying Book Club’s blog tour. All opinions expressed are my own.

Built on a world based on West Africa, Rena Barron debuts with a compelling story about a girl with no magic in a world teeming with it.

Magic has a price—if you’re willing to pay.

Born into a family of powerful witchdoctors, Arrah yearns for magic of her own. But each year she fails to call forth her ancestral powers, while her ambitious mother watches with growing disapproval.

There’s only one thing Arrah hasn’t tried, a deadly last resort: trading years of her own life for scraps of magic. Until the Kingdom’s children begin to disappear, and Arrah is desperate to find the culprit.

She uncovers something worse. The long-imprisoned Demon King is stirring. And if he rises, his hunger for souls will bring the world to its knees… unless Arrah pays the price for the magic to stop him.

With all intents of being forthright, I will tell you that I have very complicated feelings about this book. There were definitely parts that I loved and parts that I didn’t. Writing this review took just as much time as reading it with me having to parse through said complicated feelings. This post is an extension of that dissection.

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When this book is at its strongest, it doesn’t only put its best foot forward – it goes all out. Nothing is done by half-measures, which works well half the time playing up strengths to a maximum. It’s brave and something that I really admire in this story.

A world built as strong as it is vast

Kingdom of Souls is an ambitious work and its larger-than-life world attests to it. With West Africa at its foundation, Barron’s world is a lush, colorful one with unique characteristics that’ll separate it from other stories in its genre.

I love how clear the story’s world was described – the dynamics between its peoples, the Five Tribes and the Almighty Kingdom: their belief system, the gods they worship, political hierarchy, and general way of living. They are fully alive within the pages of this story, even the Northerners and Kefu, though I have a feeling there’d be a lot more from those last two in the coming books as they’ve only been discussed in relation with the former.

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Mythology weaved into the narrative

I love mythology and I love that many books have a bit of it included in their narrative. I most especially love when the mythology and lore in a book go outside the usual Greek and Roman ones that have already inspired a handful of earlier YA titles.

But, that’s not the case with Kingdom of Souls.

Mythology and lore are not added as a mere layer to Arrah’s story – it’s tightly woven into the narrative with a life and purpose of its own independent from Arrah. Heka – the god of the peoples of the Five Tribes – and the Orishas – the gods of the Almighty Kingdom – all add something to the whole story. Powerful but fallible and unpredictable, their intentions are not entirely pure and their actions aren’t always for the good of everyone. They are the wild cards of this story and I just have a feeling they will continue to serve up surprises in the coming sequels, which will be really interesting especially given the way things ended in this one.

A compelling heroine

This is one of the biggest selling points of this book for me. Kingdom of Souls is a character-driven story, and it needed a strong character to carry its weight through.

Arrah proved to be more than capable for the part.

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She is a compelling heroine, one that you will root for from beginning to end. She’s tough, fierce, and determined but she’s also plagued with frustration, disappointment, and feelings of inadequacy at her lack of magic, at her mother’s disapproval and condescension. Arrah is loyal and dedicated to her family and her friends, unhesitatingly making sacrifices – crossing lines she set for herself – in the belief that it will save those she loves.

With a solid cast of characters behind her – the charming Rudjek, steadfast Sukkar, and Hassana, her loving father Oshe and her paradoxical mother Arti – Arrah grow by leaps and bounds within the pages of this book and it was such a joy reading about her. I found it easy to empathize with her, despair with her – basically to feel whatever it is that she is feeling. It takes a special kind of character to do that and, if anything, I will be reading the sequels just to find out what happens to Arrah.

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As it is with any book, I had a number of issues with Kingdom of Souls. Some of these I would have easily overlooked but, in the case of this book, they just greatly affected my enjoyment that I had to take note of them.

Too much

I appreciate complex stories, I really do. Sometimes though, when you add one thing after another, it just gets to be too much. This was my main problem with Kingdom of Souls.

Barron served up plot twists like dishes on a banquet, and it became too much, too hard to digest. All the plot threads she pulled into this book alone could easily write a trilogy. It created an imbalance that in turn affected the story’s pace.

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Wonky pacing

This is probably my biggest issue.

Being a character-driven story, I already expected the pace of this book to run a bit slower. But, with all those blocks of story pieces thrown into the plot, the pace just crawled.

This problem was most prevalent in the book’s middle parts. It just sagged, felt unbalanced and repetitive. Characters would go on about something one chapter only to repeat talking about the same thing a few chapters down. I put down the book a handful of times because it just got too exhausting. It was a good thing that the first and last parts of the book were more even-tempered.

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Kingdom of Souls is an imperfect but still sets the beginnings of what sounds like a really promising series. Its strength lies deeply in its character and Barron’s rich world-building. I would definitely come back for the sequels because I’m just too curious (and, honestly, too attached to the characters.) YA SFF readers will find something to love in this book, and hopefully, the whole series.

about the author RENA BARRON grew up in small-town Alabama where stories of magic and adventure sparked her imagination. After penning her first awful poem in middle school, she graduated to writing short stories and novels by high school.

Rena loves all things science fiction, ghosts, and superheroes. She’s a self-proclaimed space nerd. When she’s not writing, she can be found reading or brushing up on her French.

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