The Starlight Heir by Amalie Howard is a fast-paced, magical ride that blends rich world-building with a strong, fierce protagonist. Suraya, a badass bladesmith with a secret celestial power, is invited to a deadly competition for the crown prince's hand in marriage—only to find out it's actually a hunt for the Starkeeper, the girl with starlight magic in her blood, and surprise, she’s the one they’re after. The mix of Persian and Indian mythology adds an exciting layer to the world, and the magical elements keep you hooked.
Suraya is the kind of heroine you root for. She’s tough, loyal, and doesn’t back down from anyone, which makes her journey engaging from start to finish. The romance with Roshan, the prince's half-brother, has great chemistry, though it’s more of a slow burn than I expected. It’s sweet but could’ve had a little more punch. While Roshan is likable, there’s a bit of room for more depth in his character. The plot moves quickly, with plenty of action and tension, though the ending felt a little rushed, and I wish there had been more focus on some of the magical creatures and side characters.
Overall, The Starlight Heir delivers a gripping adventure with solid character development, a fascinating magical world, and a romance that keeps you invested. It’s a strong start to a series that leaves you wanting more.

Got both the audio and ebook and loved this. The characters were wonderful and the story interesting. I bought a signed copy of the paperback as soon as Amalie posted about them.

I am always so hesitant to dive into new fantasy worlds because it takes a bit to learn the world and physics rules and such, but this one sucked me in from start to finish. With ACOTAR and The Trial of the Sun Queen vibes, this is a go-to for fantasy readers!!

Wow. I loved this. It is quintessential Romantasy. I had so many theories about where it was going and I was wrong. Some of it is very predictable but not in a bad way. I loved the humor of the FMC and I am SO intrigued for this upcoming triangle for the next book!!!!

i loved this, it’s so fast paced and i got sucked into Suraya’s journey immediately. Suraya is a powerful fmc who doesn’t let anyone push her around and is fiercely loyal to the people she cares about. Roshan is the illegitimate brother to the crown prince and isn’t perfect with secrets of his own, but he’s also a gentleman who just wants to protect Suraya to the best of his ability. I found both her and Roshan easy to like and Roshan especially was so witty and a big flirt, the tension between them was soooo good. the conflict with the royals and the rebellion had me at the edge of my seat, especially when Suraya and Roshan were on the run. i couldn’t stand prince Javed or his dusty mother, i was sincerely praying on their downfall the whole time. i liked the other side characters though: Aran, Clem, Laleh and Amma. I thought the magic was very creative too— that addition of another certain pov had me wanting to know more, i cannot wait for the sequel now.

This book was fine. I didn’t hate it nor did I love it. I had to force myself to finish it at the end and even then I was skimming it. The last chapter was enough to get me engaged and potentially continue the series.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I wanted to like it because I liked the premise, but the delivery just did not work for me.

The Starlight Heir follows Sura as she traverses the perils of court. She is pulled into the Crown Prince's web by being summoned to participate in the ball where he will choose his bride. The book has magic, courtly intrigue, romance, fighting, dances with princes, and so much more. I highly enjoyed this book because Amalie Howard took the time to make it accessible to a wide audience while still keeping the pace fast and the story flirty.

If you like Sarah J. Maas, check out The Starlight Heir!

Unfortunately, The Starlight Heir wasn’t for me, but I anticipate I’m in the minority on this one! As a fantasy and romance reader, the premise sounded so promising, but the execution was a bit disappointing for me and ultimately led me to putting this down instead of finishing. The writing in particular came across juvenile for an adult romantasy and the characters fell flat.

That all said, I’ll certainly be trying this author’s future works.

I received an advanced copy of The Starlight Heir from Netgalley and the publisher and am leaving this review voluntarily.

I'm confused. In fact, I think I spent the entirety of The Starlight Heir confused. Was this entertaining? Absolutely. Despite considering not finishing, I read it to the bitter end. But I fear the entertainment factor was all this story had going for it.

I've read a lot of rushed plots. However, this book took it to a whole new level and is where most of my confusion stems from. We did not sit on one plot point for more than a chapter. Maybe two. The plot was a frustratingly uncatchable bouncy ball, hopping from one point to the next before you even knew it had bounced away. There was no development, emotional impact, or real connection to the things happening because we weren't given the time to process what happened before we moved on. It felt like the author tried to simultaneously fit every popular romantasy plot into the book, but it wasn't working. Because of that, the plot was highly predictable and messy. Half of the points could have been cut out, and the overall plot wouldn't have even noticed. Essentially, the plot was underdeveloped. In fact, the whole book was underdeveloped.

There was some world-building, but it was extremely bare bones. Did I know enough to get me by? Yes, but many things would have made way more sense had we had more information. The magic was interesting but confusing. We didn't really know how everything worked, so Suraya having all this magical power didn't have the impact it was supposed to. And the characters? Oh boy.

Suraya made me angry in the worst possible way. She was so oblivious that it hurt, and her decisions in the book's last half had me banging my head against the wall. I could not fathom how anything she did made any sense because her character was so wishy-washy. She's this, but she's also that, and even though those two things completely contradict each other, it's fine because main characterrrrr! She's so strong, but she's also weak. She's a spitfire, but she runs away from confrontation. She's been taught how to fight, but "how do I use a sword again?" She's having weird sex dreams with this shadow dude, but "he's obviously not the one I want (but please don't stop weird shadow dude)." Pick something! Please! I could overlook it if there were one or two things that were a little off here and there. But it was constant.

The other characters were forgettable. I don't even remember their names, in all honesty. And also, what was the point of the shadow dude's chapters? And the epilogue? Throughout the book, there was no hint that there would be a second book, and then, BAM! Epilogue! What was it even talking about? Did I miss something? That's entirely possible because of how fast everything moved, but I feel like I would have remembered something along those lines mentioned earlier.

If you're looking for a quick romantasy read, The Starlight Heir might be for you. However, I had too many issues to enjoy it, and I will not be picking up the second book.

The premise of this book was appealing and I really wanted to love it. I was especially looking forward to the Indian and Persian setting and mythos inspiration. Unfortunately, this book is a DNF/DNFFN for me. I just could not get invested to the point of continuing and found myself struggling to pay attention.

The really frustrating part is that I cannot pinpoint exactly why. I love the idea of the story, the bulb is intriguing, and there is nothing that is overly off-putting for what that I've read. There just isn't much that is grabbing me yet. I'll happily come back and give it another try at some point to see if it's actually the story or just something in my mood. Rating this 3 🌟s for now since I'm not sure if the problem isn't just my overall winter-blahs mood.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and Avon/Harper Voyager for the arc. All opinions are my own.

It’s an interesting premises and good representation! Would be a very fun read if you’ve like Trial of the Sun Queen!

I’m torn on this rating but I think I’m going to sit solidly at 4 stars here.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
Please stop using modern lingo in fantasy novels that are not set in modern times. Reading things like “book boyfriends are simply better” and “thick thighs save lives” throw me out of a book so fast and make it very hard to take the plot if the book any bit seriously.

My only other complaint is that I would have LOVED to see more development of the side characters and a stronger relationship established. A lot of the punches didn’t really hit as hard as I’m sure they were intended because I didn’t get a chance to truly empathize or connect with them in the story.

Outside of that, the book was a very quick and very easy read. I read this in one sitting and very much enjoyed the world it was set in. The story was enjoyable and I definitely am looking forward to the next book.

I haven’t finished the audiobook but it just wasn’t what I liked. So I’m DNFING it. It just seemed to similar to other stories that I’ve read before and liked better. No hate to the author, but I think that the story could be a little bit better. I liked the beginning of the story and I think that they should be more to it.

Beautiful and fantastical ... listened to the audio of this book and it was well worth it, and have enjoyed seeing others read and love this book

I thought the concept of this book was interesting and I’m always looking for books with Persian and Indian inspiration. This book just didn’t work for me on several levels sadly, I found the world building very lacking, the characters fairly flat, and the romance elements rushed. For me the worst part was the modern anachronisms present, such as one character referring to another characters mother as his “Egg donor” in a society that presumably doesn’t have modern medicine. I really wanted to like this one but I just couldn’t get past most of my issues.

This book was okay. The premise was excellent but something got lost in the delivery for me. I did appreciate that this was a romantasy that was 800+ long. The inclusion of contemporary phrases and slang…etc was rough, would’ve preferred a more through world building/lore building and a bit more fleshing out of the characters.

Not sure if I’ll read book 2, but I’m curious so probably will.

DNF

Let me start this by saying that I have heard great things about the book, but it's not in my cards currently. I would like to give this another shot someday, however!

The Starlight Heir by Amalie Howard

A bladesmith blessed by the stars. A prince with a dangerous secret. A god bound in shadows.

The overall premise of this book caught my attention but when I started reading it I found myself wanting to drop it due to the modern slang use and how cliche some of the lines were.

“Thick thighs save lives,”

"Don’t prince-splain me.”

In the first few chapters we have Suraya, the FMC, and her best friend, Laleh, talking about the letter Suraya received as a summon to be a candidate to marry the prince. In these opening chapters Suraya basically is saying the equivalent of oh I'm just a dirty blacksmith girl I would rather die than marry a prince... I also found that Laleh is overly sexual when talking to her friend who retorts in ways that sets her up to be relatively prude but the moment she's off and around other men she's constantly desiring to be more and making first moves? I can't tell if there's any character development in this book because these characters never felt established in the first place.

I found that after about the first third of the book the writing feels completely different and enters into the actual trials and plot of the story. I found that the drastic shift in this made me struggle to enjoy the better portion of the story still. With a distaste for the characters and experiencing scenes that seemed random or rushed just to get them into the story made it difficult to settle into where we start to get a better pacing.

By the end of this book I felt more invested but not intrigued enough that I would continue reading the story. I think I would have had more pull to this if the pacing was better and the characters felt more consistent. I also find that the shadow character in this was not established enough to be mysterious but just seemed like a placeholder.

Thank you Netgallery for providing me this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book deals with Indian mythology our main character is a bladesmith who has the ability to imbue her work with a jadu. This is the last source of magic in her realm. She does live with her family and she gets invite to a tournament at the palace for the crown princes hand in marriage. This book has it all. Trials, magic and love. I am thankful for the arc of this book