Thank you NetGalley and BHC Press for approving my ARC copy of this book.

The start of the book felt a bit dragging. It was super descriptive - being a fantasy fan I am usually used to high-level world-building but this almost felt exhaustive. Despite this, I did find the writing to be beautiful and I felt like I was really there.

Any story that incorporates folklore and mythology will catch my eye and I thought it was really imaginative. I am not familiar with Croatian mythology so it was quite fresh and new for me.

I really enjoyed the characters and the humour - fun banter is always a plus for me so the fact we got it from the narrator made it even better.

I think that this book just wasn’t the book for me at this time. I kept trying to get into it - the asides were funny, I think I could have liked the plot, but something just wasn’t working for me now. I’d come back to it later though.

The premise of this story sounds so good and I wanted to like this very much but I find this underwhelming.

This story follows a cast of characters who are working together to defend Zagreb from the wrath of the Black Queen. The Queen, once sealed away, threatens to return to Zagreb to create chaos and get revenge on those who had wronged her. The fate to save the city lies in three very unique individuals – Leo, a star demon, Dario, a journalist and a twelve year old student, Stella. How will these three very different characters come together to defeat the Black Queen?

I find the author spent too much time in the introduction. It felt draggy and the plot didn’t seem to get anywhere more than halfway through the story. I enjoyed the different characters introduced here and what they can offer to the plot however, I feel the characters lacked depth and reaction even in dire situations. Because of the long introduction, it leaves little time for the characters to solve the problem which made the ending feel rushed as the author tries to tie all his loose ends together.

The concept was definitely intriguing as it touches on Croatian folklore mixed in with urban fantasy. If only the whole story was executed better. Overall, there is definitely potential in this story, just needs a bit more editing in terms of content and loop holes.

Thank you Netgalley and BHC Press for the arc.

The whole premise sounded promising. At times it was very easy to read but for the most part, I couldn’t get into it. There is a lot of information right from the start. I wanted to love this book and I think it could get there with some help and changes.

I HATE, literally hate writing book reviews like that, especially for debut novels that have such an intriguing setting and plot promise. This one is set in the South of Europe - Croatia, Zagreb to be precise. It felt like it was rushed and not well developed by the publisher.
For the first part of the book, we met a lot of characters and are introduced to a lot of details that are not helping to get us (readers) settled into the reading, and with that, I did not get what exactly was going on in the thinnest part. Characters are flat here, as we don't get to see their development, as this place was taken by descriptions of the city (like buildings, trams, etc.), but it was TOO MUCH of it, and it got me so bored, and not captivated by this story, engaging was getting harder and harder with this (and I wanted to like it!).
Above I mentioned characters, but this is not the only problem I have here - the other one is PLOT... I did not feel right and made no sense as being disjointed by the count of charters and the type of narration. I think if some editing and adding some parts (like more on climax with the Black Queen) it would have more structure in it.
I think there was potential, but some help and development in "The city beneath the stars" would help it greatly!

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this book.

I'm very divided on this one... One one hand, the whole idea of this book sounds so interesting, and at times I found myself really enjoying it. On the other, its very... wordy to say the least. A lot of stuff in there that has no meaning I guess. It was a fun book overall but just not my favorite.

**le sigh**

I really wanted to like this book. I honestly did. It had so much potential: it takes place in the Croatian city of Zagreb; there’s a Black Queen who may or may not be lost to legend; magical trams; witches, myths, and legends; celestial beings and multi dimensions. At the end of the day, tho, it just becomes too much and the front of the book is bogged down in introducing the reader to all of these aspects of the story. The whimsical nature of the storytelling also felt forced. By the time to plot finally started moving at the end of the book, I found I just wasn’t that engaged with the story anymore. Personally, I feel the book would have benefited from some tighter editing, but that’s just me. I have no doubt that this book will do well, I’ve just read better books that elevate an already magical city into something greater (Gaiman’s Neverwhere did this perfectly for London, and Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone series did this for Prague).

Thanks to NetGalley and BHC Press for an advanced eARC in exchange for an honest review.

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This book shows a lot of promise; parts of the prose were humorous and illustrative, proving that Kudei has a beautiful artistic voice. However, sometimes the language gets ahead of itself, and the plot is lost in flowery paragraphs. This is a solid fantasy pick for anyone who's a fan of Enchantment, and fantasy fans will enjoy a glimpse into some of these Croatian legends.

I really was fascinated by the cover, the description, and was excited to read this. But so quickly I realized I wouldn't be finishing this book because of the style of writing. I rarely DNF a book, but this became one.

Unfortunately this book did not work for me and I decided to dnf it around page 30.
There was too much desription of the surroundings that I could not focus on the actual story. A shame.

I was attracted by the gorgeous cover and think there's a lot of potential in this book. Unfortunately the style of writing didn't kept me interested and the story fell flat.
Not my cup of tea
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I'm a fan of urban fantasy and books taking place in different places in the world, in this case Zagreb Croatia. And I try to support and like debut authors. But Sonya Kudei's "The City Beneath the Hidden Stars" really didn't do it for me.

"City" is clearly trying to be a book along the lines of Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere"with magic hidden within the regular city. It takes quite awhile to find the plot, which basically comes down to the Black Queen, once vanquished, trying to come back and rule the world. Leo, a star daimon who thoughtlessly gave the Black Queen some kind of special knowledge of magic hundreds of years ago, is sent to Zagreb to stop the Black Queen. The plot gets buried under miles of rambling descriptions of cities, trams, and millions of other (frequently unnecessary) things and then suddenly something happened and you find yourself having to go back and re-read to see what actually happened. Often pretty anticlimactic. There's no real character development for any of the flat characters in the story, and therefore nothing to get attached to. This was a hard one to finish, just a few chapters in and the writing style had me ready to put it down. I don't think there was a sentence that didn't have at least one simile or metaphor crammed in it. Often followed by several rambling sentences on why it was a strange description. I kept going hoping it would get better, but it really never did.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Thanks so much to NetGalley and BHC press for the ARC! Like many others have noted, the book leans heavily into a “Good Omens”/“Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” vibe in terms of the writing style, plot, and characters. It’s quite irreverent and in places this works really well; but it does get tiresome after awhile. I certainly wanted to know how it was all going to fit together, so there is internal momentum to the story, but I have to say that I struggled to connect with it. It’s a fascinating premise and clearly, the author is a gifted writer! I’ll look forward to following her to see what she writes next.

Book vibes: jocular nonchalance
This book takes us to Croatia where a star daimon has been sent to ensure this ancient evil Queen does not escape her other world prison. But we don't get to that part of the book until we have read 60% of the pages. So I would call the first 60% fluff that was supposed to build the characters (I never felt attached to any of them). The last 40% was full of action but almost too fast paced to appreciate anything. I liked the concept of the book but I didn't like the pacing or how certain things were brought up once and never talked about again (tram fairies). I also found myself reading paragraphs and sometimes pages without taking in the words but couldn't be bothered to go back and reread. Because of that I couldn't tell you what ultimately happened to the evil Queen.
Overall I didn't hate it and didn't love it. I would definitely read something else by this author in the future.

This was....really hard to read. Even if you can get past the excessively descriptive writing style which slows the pace down to an almost unbearable pace, the entire first half of the book could really be cut out and not lose much of the story or impact. Two of the characters lack a compelling presence on the page, and there's not nearly enough action to warrant an entire book. This really feels like a novella that got stretched into a novel, and is the worse for it.

I'm really having trouble putting my feelings about this book into words.
I'm also having trouble figuring them out in the first place.

Let's start here:
I really liked the premise, even though it took a while to figure out what that was.
A star - in humanoid form - is sent to earth to right a wrong he caused some 500 years ago, more or less accidentally creating a big evil that is now threatening to rise up again.
More or less accidentally is a good description for the rest of the book too.
There are three main characters, who don't seem to have anything to do with each other for the entirety of the book. One is obviously more interesting than the others - Leo, the somewhat quirky star who has been earthed and can't go back to outer space before the Black Queen has been put in her place.
Then there's Dario, a philosophy-student-dropout who lives with a difficult landlord and works for a small magazine.
And Stella, a little girl in fifth grade who is convinced the bad things happening are her fault and she needs to set it right.
Well
None of these stories really seem to go anywhere for half the book. And even when they gain purpose...it's so all over the place that you can't really follow anything.

I liked the base - Zagreb, croatian legends, something different.
Much like the writing style.
In the beginning, it very much gave off "Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" vibes. The humor is great.
But then the story doesn't seem to know whether it wants to stick to the humorous, go childish or serious and downright dark, dipping into horror.
My mind kept slipping in and out of the story while reading, sometimes getting a clear picture, more often than not just reading words. Too many characters describing their situations too closely, too much in-between breaking up the story.
It was all over the place, which can be fine, but for me it wasn't.

There was a big moment of tension in the end, and towards it, a build up. But the perspective-jumping and the writing style of the book killed off tense parts pretty quickly.

There was a lot of potential, but not a lot of it ended up being used.

I had to DNF this book as it was not the time for me to read it, honestly. It was too long & i was in between many things going on personally. I do hope to be able to read it sometime soon.

The first part was a little difficult for me to follow because it was too descriptive, but the fact it surrounds mythology that, for me, it's not that well known, still interests me. Thank you to the publisher & netgalley for this arc.

I started to read this book alone but felt that some of the people and place names felt childish and wondered if perhaps I should have read this with the children. I did finish the book but honestly did find it hard work. Maybe just me but not really for me. Sorry.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and the publishers for allowing me the opportunity to read this e-arc.

A book that has a lot of promise, but I feel could have been executed better. The author has a habit of using modernisms and comparisons which feel exceptionally out of place after describing the interstellar-ness of characters and such, which is unfortunately quite distracting. Overall though I did enjoy the story, but it would have benefitted from tighter direction and editing.