Title: Black Sun
Author: Rebecca Roanhorse
Narrators: Cara Gee, Nicole Lewis, Kaipo Schwab, Shaun Taylor-Corbett
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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Many thanks to Simon & Schuster Audio and Libro FM for my free advanced copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review. This review was written voluntarily and all opinions are my own.
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Whew, I loved Black Sun so much. This wasn’t an anticipated read for me, or a book I had any interest in before I got it as an October ALC from LibroFM. After I read the blurb, I knew it was something I HAD to read. I planned to read it before pub day, but that wasn’t possible. It was so so good. It was amazing, and the audiobook was the cherry on top for me.
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It’s no secret at this point that I love full-cast audiobooks! This story was told from the perspectives of four main characters, and each one had a voice narrator that suited them perfectly. It was told in chapters moving from one character to another, with the excellent use of flashbacks and time jumps to enable readers catch up with the characters’ lives leading up to the solstice.
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Politics, social climbing, and power grabs were all over this book, especially in Tova. Xiala and Serapio and their voyage over the sea and the events that led them there, were my fav characters and parts of the book. I can’t wait to read more of them in Book 2. I appreciate that the audiobook came with a PDF that listed the characters’ names and the cities they belong to, because there were quite a lot in this book.
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The book ended on such a high and I love how it all played out. We were denied a battle between the (spoiler) and the (spoiler) but I love that the writing is what led to that. There were betrayals that ended being a blessing in disguise for one character, as well.
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I can’t recommend this book enough, because it’s so so good!
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Resistance Reborn comes the first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic.
A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun
In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.
Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.
Crafted with unforgettable characters, Rebecca Roanhorse has created an epic adventure exploring the decadence of power amidst the weight of history and the struggle of individuals swimming against the confines of society and their broken pasts in the most original series debut of the decade.
The Author
Rebecca Roanhorse is the New York Times bestselling author of Trail of Lightning, Storm of Locusts, Star Wars: Resistance Reborn, and Race to the Sun. She has won the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards for her fiction, and was the recipient of the 2018 Astounding (formerly Campbell) Award for Best New Writer. Her forthcoming book, Black Sun, is out in October. She lives in New Mexico with her family.
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