I received this as an advance reader copy from Tor.com and NetGalley. I hope Robert Lazzaretti created more maps for Fevered Star. I’m including them here because I love maps. My copy of Black Sun has two maps, which I referenced constantly while reading Fevered Star. In Roanhorse’s hands he is a very sympathetic monster, and I want him to win. I thought several times that in another book Serapio would be the big bad. I found myself hurting for all of them and alternately wanting to swaddle them in soft blankets and looking forward to them unleashing their power on Lord Balam. The heart of this book is Xiala, Serapio, Naranpa, and to a lesser degree Okoa. Roanhorse never forgets that all the plots and schemes are carried out and shaped by people, who have complicated loyalties and motivations. The plots we saw glimpses of are now more central, and much bigger than vengeance against the Watchers, or grabbing more power in Tova. Old grievances are rising to the surface. Saaya’s scheme to birth Serapio and make him the vessel of the Crow God has wreaked havoc and brought to an end a treaty which has given The Meridian 300 years of peace. Now there is a power vacuum and the people who wanted more power are using it to their own ends.įevered Star is more fractured and heavier on the politics. Serapio, himself the product of decades of plotting, needed to get to Tova and to Sun Rock. The characters knew what they wanted and their objectives were clear to them, if not to us. For Naranpa, the politics were life and death and we watched her spin her wheels, frustratingly unable to get traction on her own plans. Tova was brimming with plots between factions in the Tower and among the clans and the clanless, but it felt less important because I knew Serapio was going to turn everything on it’s head. In Black Sun, the political machinations were like the beat under the melody. Okoa is caught between the Crow God reborn, his sister, the new Matron of the Crow clan, and the need to avenge his mother’s murder. Xiala is lost so far from the sea and mourning the deaths she inadvertently caused. Naranpa wakes up in a tomb, back from the dead and unsure of everything she learned while training to be the Sun Priest. Serapio wakes up with a wound he cannot heal and uncertain of who he is now, having expected to die at the Convergence. Far from the chaos in Tova, Lord Balam murders a thief so that he can walk through dreams. Very much a middle book, but a very entertaining middle book.įevered Star starts with a murder.

The tl:dr version of this review is: I could not put it down.

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse