Quick & Dirty: Epic fantasy that follows a diverse group as they attempt to defeat a dark god.

The Review:
Starless by Jacqueline Carey is an epic fantasy tale about finding oneself in the midst of prophecy and meddling gods. I was really excited about reading this one because I’ve wanted to read Jacqueline Carey for quite some time and I just haven’t yet. There is a major plot point that will make reviewing this book extra hard. Some reviewers have spoiled it while the publisher and author wanted to keep it a secret hoping it’ll make the journey more surprising and to learn along with Khai as he undergoes the journey he has been destined.

Khai is born into a world where the gods roam and occasionally bless children. Destined from birth to serve as the protector of the Princess Zariya with whom he shares a soul, Khai is trained by desert warriors as soon as he is old enough to walk. He is taught the art of killing, poisons and stealth. Khai’s strength develops more and more with the people that come into his life. There are two side characters in which I really, really enjoyed. With Khai’s Shadow training he begins to learn more and more facts about himself and the murky destiny that he is supposed to fulfill but doing so leaves him with more questions than answers about his true self. Khai learns the biggest secret of all that he’s been deceived of his short life.

Starless is a story that chronologically follows Khai as he trains at the Fortress of the Winds, to journey to Merabaht to meet the lovely Princess Zariya of the House of the Ageless to the ultimate adventure of trying to stop Miasmas from taking over and destroying the world. The story is told entirely through Khai’s first person perspective.

Khai has been duped about who he is and when he finds out the truth he has a hard time dealing with the truth. It’s not until Khai finally meets Zariya that Khai is forced to face that truth. Khai’s attitude does change throughout the book. At first, he seems a bit childish and smug, which he rightly should as he is only eight at the beginning of the novel. Khai knows he has been chosen by the god Parkhun the Scouring Wind to wield the desert wind and is the soul shadow of the princess. As Khai begins to grow, Khai learns that he is naïve about many things that they couldn’t teach at the Fortress. The one thing that Khai never faulted from was his fighting skills.

Zariya and Khai share a soul and they are at once smitten with each other when they meet. They act as though two halves have become whole when they get together. They feel like a piece is missing when they are separate. Unfortunately, Zariya is not entirely healthy so she relies on Khai to handle a lot of the political intrigue about the House of the Ageless. Zariya uses a lot of endearments in her speech i.e. lovely, darling and so on. It is explained as a House of the Ageless thing but it does get a bit annoying after a bit.

I really enjoyed Starless in the beginning but then the story started slowing down for me so I did struggle in parts. The story alternates between slow and action-packed. I think for me, it just took too long for Khai to meet Zariya and then from there it took a while for Khai and Zariya to set off on their adventure. One of the things about Starless, is that prophecy plays a huge part of the story. Unfortunately, no one can know too much about things because there are still too many paths and if someone makes the wrong choice then things may not play out properly. “If this… than that…” plays a huge part of some of the one-sided conversations.

Overall, if you are a fan of epic fantasy then you may really enjoy Starless. One of my favorite aspects of this story were the living gods, their different characteristics and how they interacted with the humans of this world. Khai is a badass fighter but Khai still must struggle with an inner turmoil, so I found Khai to be sympathetic in the end. Starless is a standalone and it was the ending that sold the story for me.

I have to say, Starless is one of those books that pulled me in very quick. The story is about a world where the children of the main god were all cast down to live among the mortals, and with them, all the stars in the sky were gone as well, changing the night sky. The role of gods in this interesting. They all have unique qualities and rule over specific domains. The people in those domains become well acquainted with their “local god”, for lack of a better term.

The first section of the book is a coming of age tale. I love Khai as a character, he is fierce and talented and just over all, a good character. He is very much a “chosen one”, who excels well beyond his talented peers to take on awe inspiring skills. This should not be too surprising since Khai was selected by his one of the Sacred Twin gods to be the shadow or the Sun-blessed chosen. His soul and fate is linked to another, a person he has never met but is committing his entire life to train to become their protector. I particularly enjoyed a brother that became a mentor to Khai. This character just lent a bit of fun and truth to the otherwise more stifled and structured brotherhood experience.

The second section of the book is when he is finally united with Zariya, his soul’s twin. I enjoyed this part as well, as Khai finally gets to leave his sheltered existence and start to experience the world beyond the brotherhood in the desert. Khai has some internal struggles to sort through in addition to adjusting to the wider world.

The third part of the book is full of adventure and a wide range of characters and experiences. It is also where the prophecy begins to fall into place.

This book is very tropey. That is not a bad thing, but knowing every reader has their own sets of preferences, I want to let you know that readers that don’t do well with “chosen one” stories, or stories that are influenced by prophecy, or end of the world threats, you may want to go into this one with a forewarning that all of those play heavily in this book.

I loved the first 80% of this book. However, at that point, I felt like the conflict driving the story became so dire and over the top, that it actually lost some sense of urgency for me. I hate to give away too much, and I know there are so many books where the conflict threatens some dire situation, but in this case, I felt quite strongly it could never come to pass, it was just too catastrophic, and therefor, I found myself less invested in the resolution, which in turn, felt like it took forever. Perhaps it was just the decline in my interest that made it feel drawn out, but between the final 80% to 95%, I just lost that suspenseful feeling I am sure I was meant to have. I also have to say, that while the prophecy is not set in stone, I did not care for how it almost felt like a script, where they could at times reference it to help determine what to do next. It just made the story feel a bit more contrived than natural to me.

All that said, that means that 85% of the book (the first 80% and last 5%) were amazing and completely made the book worth reading and recommending.

I participated in a blog tour for this book, which was awesome. Any new book by Jacqueline Carey is going to make my day. Blog tour post is here: https://hergraceslibrary.com/2018/06/15/fearlesswomen-blog-tour-starless-by-jacqueline-carey-excerpt-review-and-giveaway/

reviewed for Romantic Times Book Reviews online www.rtbr.com
https://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/starless