An amazing continuation, picking up where we left off in BLACK SUN. The stakes continue to increase as we're swallowed by Roanhorse's exquisite worldbuilding.

4.5 stars - It should be noted on the front end that BLACK SUN is one of my all time favorite books, period. So I'm kind of in the tank for this book coming into it. I will also concede that the pacing in this one is not as strong the first book. That said... I LOVED THIS SO MUCH AND IT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED!! Ugh, I just love Rebecca Roanhorse's imagination and combined with her style of storytelling & the kind of tropes/character types she tends to write. It is so dark and twisty but still has me so invested in the characters. So here are my non-spoiler thoughts on what I loved (can't get into details cuz... it is book 2 of a series so...):
1) I really loved Naranpa's journey in this one! Hers was probably my least favorite POV in the first book, and it was probably my second favorite in this one
2) I enjoyed the themes around complicated sibling dynamics, and the parallels between Naranpa & Okoa's journeys with their siblings who are kind of POSes but are also more nuanced than just bad people
3) I am always a sucker for "the gods walk among us" but that continues to be something I love in this series! I particularly love the exploration of what it means to have faith, and particularly with Serapio's journey, what it means to feel kind of chewed up & spit out by a god/religion you have committed your whole life to
4) Continue to love the political machinations & what we are learning about the overall world/the forces at work
5) This will be a Xiala/Serapio fan girl account forever more. I LOVE THEM AND I CONTINUE TO STAN
6) Xiala is one of my favorite characters in fantasy. Period. Love her backstory/situation, love her journey, love her personality

This second book in Roanhorse's Meridien series continues the battle between light and dark, as the sun is held in eclipse and the gods Serapio and Naranpa, realized in human form, have to try to find their way forward while the clan factions choose sides. Murder, betrayal, personal loss all come together to begin their path forward.

I was very happy to read this early--shorten the time I had to wait for it. And it was as good as I was hoping it would be. It took me a few chapters to get into as there are some POVs I like more than others, but as the book went on, the ones I wasn't as into grew on me and by the end, I was equally invested in everyone, though I felt like I never got enough time with anyone.

The pace was fast. The chapters ended on notes that made me want to keep reading to find out what happens next.

And of course I was happy with the queer rep. At least two of the main characters are queer, one is definitely bi or pan, and there is a non-binary side character.

I'm looking forward to the third book and hope certain characters find their way back to each other by the end, though I'm not too hopeful that they'll all get the kind of ending I wish for them.

In the second book of the series, Serapio has fulfilled his destiny and become one with the Crow god, massacring the Watchers and countless others at the Sun Rock as prophesied. He did not kill the Sun Priest, so his task is incomplete. The city of Tova is shocked, revolted and appalled by what has happened. The clans realize that war is eminent and begin their schemes and plans to protect themselves. Alliances are formed and broken and yet still war looms. But the two key figures, The Crow god Reborn, Serapio and the Sun Priest, Naranpa are finding their place in the scheme of things. Both are not comfortable with their new identities; Serapio would prefer to be liked and welcomed by his kin the Carrion Crows. Naranpa wants to explore her new found abilities somewhere away from the present strife.
This book involve the building of characters and places and ultimately to war most likely in the sequel. The world-building is magnificent and the characters are stunning. This is a fascinating read!

Fevered Star sat on my TBR pile for a month because I was afraid to pick it up. So many books suffer from the sophomore slump aka the dreaded sequel aka Empire Strikes Back (don't come at me, not a fan and not up for debate). I was so afraid that Fevered Star wouldn't live up to Black Sun that I let it sit and sit and sit.

Now I am mad at myself for letting it waste away for so long. IT WAS SO GOOD! It met all my expectations and did the impossible ask of book #2: provide enough of what you loved about book 1 while providing enough twists and turns to keep the reader excited.

IT WAS ME! I was that reader and let me tell y'all, Fevered Star lives up to the Black Sun hype, makes you fall in love with @rebeccaroanhorse 's perfectly crafted fantasy world and again surpasses expectations.

I won't say much more because I would definitely pull a Serapio and end anyone who gave me spoilers, but Xiala and Serapio make plenty of appearances. I'm still rooting for them, maybe because I need mermaids to get happy endings.

I cannot wait for more from this series! If you, like me could not be more excited to get your hands on this book (thank you ARC from Netgalley), GO PUT IT ON HOLD AT YOUR LIBRARY! Seriously, you'll be the first one of all your friends to crack the pages of this masterpiece.

This was such a great read! It didn't do everything I wanted to see in a sequel and felt a little too short, but I still thoroughly enjoyed this book.
I love these characters so much. Xiala and Serapio and Iktan stole my heart yet again, and I ached with them and really liked every moment of their journey. The characterization and their journey feels fresh and interesting and they feel very alive. Balam also became a very intriguing political player, and I found myself surprised enjoying his pov chapters so much. Overall, I'm very attached to these characters so whatever they go through I'll be ready to read it all. *screeches in xialaserapio*
The worldbuilding of this entire series is absolutely stellar. I was already enamoured with it while reading Black Sun, but Fevered Star takes it to another level in all aspects—more vivid locations, more lore, history, mythos and more politics, all written in really immersive and cinematic prose. I love how much care the author puts into this world and its elements and I love how cohesive it all is—it's so easy to imagine the locations and the architecture and the natural landscapes being described on the page.
That being said, I still think this book is very flawed. I definitely expected more from the book in terms of the plot—specifically character confrontations, and there were certain developments that felt a little too rushed for my taste, especially toward the end. Some resolutions felt a little too easy and some decisions a little too convenient, but overall it definitely made sense. I genuinely wish this book was longer. A lot longer. In retrospect, Fevered Star feels too much like a setup for book 3, since the stakes keep rising higher and higher till the very end, but the delivery doesn't really come to its full potential and creates even greater stakes for the conflict in the next book. Because of that now I am even more hyped for book 3 and can't wait to see where the story goes.
Despite its glaring flaws, I enjoyed Fevered Star immensely; a more objective rating would probably be 3.5 stars, but as I said, I love the characters of Between Earth and Sky too much, and given the beautiful writing and amazing worldbuilding, I can't bring myself to give this book a rating any less than 4 stars.

This was an excellent follow up to Black Sun, but I need book 3!! Characters were developed more throughout the book and new places in the world were explored. Now, I need to know more about the Teek...possibly book 3?

I loved Black Sun, a beautifully crafted world filled with characters that I loved or detested wholeheartedly. Each little piece of gamesmanship kept me turning pages well into the night. Fevered Star picks up the momentum begun in Black Sun and continues to speed into the unknown intrigues that might mean salvation or destruction of the characters that continue to shine through the twists and turns. Sadly we’ll have to wait at least another year for Book #3, guess I’ll have to reread the first two books while I wait.

This sequel to Black Sun did not disappoint. In Fevered Star, we are transported back into the midst of the epic saga from the first novel, with Roanhorse carrying forward the complex storylines, the stunning setting and the characters we've come to love. This time around readers are gifted with a lot more of the political history that has led to this moment in time. We also get a lot more backstory on Naranpa, Xiala and Serapio- including some fascinating details about Teek culture.

Roanhoarse shines at character and world-building as well as political intrigue, and that's no exception here. She's also a visual writer- I love how she paints such vivid pictures with her words. My only small gripe is the violent and gory aspects- but I am particularly sentitive to those things.

Lastly, this is one of my favorite fantasy series, not just because it a well-written narrative, but because I adore how it's set in a kind of Pre-Colombian Americas.

All in all- this was a delightful novel. I can't wait for the next installement. Until then, I'll be singing the praises of this series to everyone who will listen.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for approving me for an advanced reader copy. This review lists negatives before positives, but the positives are in there. Actual Rating: 3.5 stars.

Okay, not gonna hold y'all, this sequel was mid. The problem, overall, is that it's not enough. It's an incredibly quick read, but every aspect of it feels underdeveloped. The first half of this book is spent bouncing between low-overlapping perspectives for a period of two days. We then jump forward, again only a couple days, to follow through the last sporadic 24 hours before the book ends. The impact of every events is lessened because of how quickly everything happens. I had a similar issue with pacing and legnth in the first book, and was very hopeful the sequel would improve on this aspect, but it simply didn't. I don’t have a good handle on the legnth of this book because I read it very quickly and did not have a physical copy but I feel it would have benefitted from being longer.

This glaring issue compounds with the fact that this book is too nice. There's not enough conflict, every person is fairly lenaint, fairly easygoing, even people that have no apparent reason to actually get along, do - it feels as though this is the case because we, the audience, are expected to like them all, therefore we're shown they all like each other. It made for an impact-free climax, this inlcudes the wrap up to some confrontations that we've been waiting for since book 1 that just fell flat. Personally, I wanted more drama.

In addition to this, to me, on a political "nation-building" front, it felt incoherent. We're following the political leaders of this massive city (which should be ripe with discord but mostly simply feels empty) but we're hardly given any character motivations that make sense. None of these side characters have any reason to be there except to pad scenes, and create shallow conflict. I say its shallow because the shallowness of these characters gives the audience no reason to care about it. Instead we're given contradictory strawmans that feel to be there primarily for plot conviences.

The main conflict of our main characters is more or less centered around these wishy-washy attempts to decide if they like serapio or not and I just... didn't care. I don't believe in a world this big, with this many conflicting persepectives, that all our characters motivations should come down to one man.

Without getting into spoilers, this viewpoint does make sense for some characters and in some areas, but it's overused to the point where it feels lazy. We seem to be being lead in the direction where characters are diverging from this strawman, but we never actually get there in this book. The other "politically incoherent" aspect is, I don't know what the major takeaways are supposed to be. In fact, it ultimately feels like this book is largely saying nothing, and where it is saying something it's some lukewarm message about individuality. Not to sound like a 5 year old looking for a morale, but personally, I like my fantasy books to have some bearing on the real world, this one - to me - simply doesn't feel as though it does. (Which is not something I remember feeling about book 1).

Okay. The actual last thing I'll say, this book is still a fun time. Like I said, it's a quick read. I ate it up. It has enough fun action, the characters are great, and the journey itself is super engaging. It also introduces some new aspects that have kept me interested in and excited for the next book. It's a great head empty fantasy book, it really relies on you loving the characters, and they are good characters, it just wasn't what I was looking for as a sequel to a book that got me so invested in this world.

I really enjoyed returning to Meridian in this sequel to Black Sun. The story of the clash of gods is developing rapidly, and different factions are positioning themselves and making alliances. This book does stand on its own, but is also a bit of a bridge to what promises to be an explosive next book. I love Rebecca Roanhorse's characters, and although I had forgotten some of the events of the first book, it was great to spend more time with them.

Second in this series based on pre-Columbian cultures with a city to which the gods have returned, much to the city’s detriment. Contending political and sorcerous forces and lots of bloodshed ensue. For fans of magic crossed with palace politics.

This epic fantasy picks right up after the action packed finale of the first book. The city of Tova is now seemingly under control of Carrion Crow although no one, not even the crow clan themselves, is sure what this means. Moving on from the spectacular world and character building of the first book, the series moves into more of a plot heavy book filled with political maneuverings. Although it still has a thrilling grand finale scene. This thought provoking series has substance and deals with some heavy and thought provoking issues. It definitely met the high expectations I had going into it and I would highly recommend it to lovers of quality fantasy.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

After opening his eyes and becoming- essentially a god, Serapio is faced with the repercussions of the choices he has made and how to deal with the shattered remains of Tova. He is not the only one and it is not any easy path to follow. He must also find out what became of Xiala and her crew.

This book hits the floor running after the events from the previous book, Black Sun, but it took me a little bit to really get into it again. However, when I did I really enjoyed it. I would be very interested in listening to an audio book version!

Roanhorse’s writing is beautiful and easy to read and the characters are so well fleshed out that they seem to jump off of the page. I love that Roanhorse is a big proponent of exploring gender and sexuality in literature and it is nice to see the inclusivity in fantasy just as it has become more commonplace in science fiction as of late.

Overall, I really enjoyed the story and characters. It has been a very exciting story and I look forward to seeing what else she writes!

Really fantastic world building and a strong diverse presence on sexuality and gender. Fevered Star feels very much like a setup for book three, though.

Just as good as the first book in the series and I cant wait for the final book. Thank you Netgalley for the advanced readers copy.

The second book in Rebecca Roanhorse’s “Between Earth and Sky” trilogy is deliciously packed with intrigue and frenzied jockeying between numerous figures and factions in the wake of the fall of a previous ruling order that held sway for three hundred years. But just as enjoyable, and frankly if not even more so, was the simple fact that I was able to return to the world of the Meridian. This trailblazing setting with its pre-Columbian Native American influences feels just as refreshingly new as it did the first time that I was introduced to it in "Black Sun," not to mention confident and comfortable with itself as a realm proudly unlike any other fantasy world, or at least unlike any that I have encountered in all my prior reading. The more that I get to experience it in all of its diversity and well-constructed complexity through the eyes of the various characters, the more I want to see.

When the trilogy inevitably concludes with the next book, I sincerely hope that Roanhorse doesn’t hesitate to set other works in this fantastically unique setting that she’s crafted. I’d even be satisfied with a collection of various slice-of-life stories as long as they allowed me to further explore this land - from the sweeping plains around Hokaia to the cliffs of Tova to the steaming jungles surrounding Cuecola, and of course all the places in between.