I loved this book!

It’s been a while since a new author (to me) has captured my heart, but Rebecca Roanhorse did.

Black Sun had everything I love in an epic fantasy. It’s going to be hard not to spend this review gushing, but just know it’s a definite recommendation!

Xiala is my favourite character. A captain of a ship with a mistrusting crew thanks to her magical heritage, she doesn’t roll over for anyone. She’s strong and tough, but we see her vulnerabilities and caring nature.

Serapio is a mystery: marked for destiny since a small child, even he isn’t aware of how deep his power runs. He has a mission to complete, and his determination makes him instantly likeable. But he’s not above emotions either, and his inner turmoil makes him human.

Nara has carved a path for herself from a childhood of poverty. She’s not as strong as the others, but she does find her strength as she develops, and you want to protect her from her own naivety at times.

As relationships ebb and flow and the fate of the world rests on magic and alliances, you root for all of them at the same time.

Black Sun works so well for me because of the intricate world-building. It’s pure fantasy, but you glimpse the deep history behind this place. There’s conflicting beliefs, magic and opinions, and it creates an in-depth world. As a reader, you accept what you’re told: you understand the boundaries of this world, and it makes it real.

There’re also various forms of magic, depending on your ancestors and beliefs. It adds an almost-spiritual element to the world: the physical danger is bad; the magical danger is even worse. Mixing religious beliefs and magic is always going to be an explosive mix.

Roanhorse is a new author to me, but I adore her writing style and would love to read more. Despite the fantastical elements of this world, you’re drawn in to both the places and the people with ease.

The narration is split between two time-lines and four points of view. After the first few chapters, you’re immersed in these stories and there’s no confusion what’s happening at any time.

This book is full of tension. The pacing is strong throughout and the changing narration builds suspense as each story-arc unfolds and builds. Not one you can put down with ease.

In case you haven’t guessed, I loved this! A high recommendation for anyone who is a fan of epic fantasy, but also those looking for good character development, strong world-building and a gripping plot. Black Sun had everything I enjoy in a fantasy book, and I look forward to more.

Thank you to both Rebellion and Netgalley for providing me with a ecopy of this book.

What can I say?? This is one of m favourite books of the year so far. The writing style was perfect for me, the story moved at a good pace and the mythology that was used was fascinating and so unique to me.

I can't wait to read more from this author!

This is the first instalment in the Between Earth and Sky series.

A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun

This multi-perspective and fantastical story kept me entirely engaged, throughout. I initially struggled to differentiate the character's voices, and where they fit into the over-arching story-line, but soon found my footing and was immersed in all that occurred. There was much for the reader to initially learn but, again, once I was firmly cemented in this world the focus turned to action and this was allowed to continually dominate.

I loved the focus on prophecies, as well as the insights to how the different characters reacted to it. Politics and social hierarchies were also explored, ensuring this was a dense a read as it was an intriguing one. This always delivered something new to explore and kept the reader engaged with the differing strands of sub-plot that converged with the central one.

Black Sun is truly a triumph of a novel. Rebecca Roanhorse manages to fit so much history, mythology, worldbuilding, and character development in, and she does it all well, with beautiful writing.
Honestly, I think I will need to reread Black Sun to fully appreciate the depth and scope, which is why I gave it four stars - at times it felt like there was so much going on that some of it went over my head - but even though I rarely reread books, I'm excited to one day dive back into this one to see what more I can discover!
Black Sun has been widely lauded, and in my opinion rightly so.

An excellent, complex and gripping fantasy that kept me hooked.
Great world building inspired by pre-colombian America, excellent character development and storytelling.
I loved the multiple POVs and the tightly knitted plot.
It was entertaining and I couldn't put it down, strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A rich and evocative pre-Colombian epic fantasy, full of magic and mystery. This is a complex book told not only through different points of view, but on different time lines. At its heart is the age old conflict between science and faith as well as justice and vengeance. It feels very fresh to read of pre-Colombian culture- Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Aliette de Bodard’s Obsidian and Blood series are the only others tHat come to mind, although I am sure there are others.
This book was quite difficult to understand and get in to- There was a lack of connection to the main characters which only eased in the final stages of the book. Having reached the end, I feel I need to start again from the beginning and read it with a better understanding! I believe that if the sequel was ready to go now, I would upgrade this to 5 stars. This book will only be fully rounded when the story is complete.
Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

Sadly, I had to put this down after a while. I just couldn't get fully immersed in the story and found it confusing to get a full grip on the story, the mythology and the characters.

I did appreciate the intricate world building - it was definitely a unique world, something I hadn't seen before. It's definitely a world I'd like to return to one day. For now though, it wasn't for me.

"Black Sun" is a first installment in the new fantasy series "Between Earth and Sky" inspired by the Pre-Columbian American civilization and celestial prophesy. I was really looking forward to this novel and it did not disappoint me.

I was immerse in the story from the very first chapter. I've found the writing to be engaging and very accessible to a person new to fantasy genre like myself. The world building was great and not very complex in my opinion and easy to follow which is definitely a plus for me. The story filled with political intrigue, revenge, sea adventure was absolutely brilliant. Lots of great, well built characters made the read very interesting. I especially Serapio and I very much enjoyed following his relationship with Xiala.

Everything about "Black Sun" was absolutely amazing, right from the stunning cover, superb writing, through interesting plot to a massive cliffhanger of an ending! I cannot wait for the second book. Highly recommend!

This book was just....so COOL. The start was a bit confusing but I think it just personally took me a while to work some stuff out, rather than a reflection of the pacing, etc.

I LOVED the world-building, the author made it so you could visualise the settings so vividly, it was amazing to read.

My thanks to Rebellion and NetGalley for approving me for an eARC of Black Sun.

This is one of my most anticipated releases of 2021 (check out the first part of my list here), and I was so excited to be approved. I dropped everything and immediately began reading this one! I am super glad that this one did not disappoint at all!!

This is the first book in a new series by Rebecca Roanhorse, it is a clever and vibrant fantasy novel which sweeps the reader into a world of religion, prophecies and power. The world that Roanhorse has created is incredible. I loved being swept away into this novel, and I didn’t want it to end.

We follow a number of characters’ POVs throughout the novel. These characters eventually come together in a number of ways, and I love a split POV novel especially in fantasy! It allows the plot to move at a fairly brisk pace, and allows the reader further insight into the world and the rules of the world. I loved reading all the characters viewpoints, even the characters that I wasn’t so fond of!

I think my favourite character was Xiala, the sea captain who loves a drink, and who plays a vital role during the novel. She was so spiky and rude, I couldn’t help falling for her. Any fantasy set at sea immediately plants itself in my heart, and her chapters at sea were my absolute favourites!

The representation in Black Sun is excellent; gender fluid and non-binary characters, and a bisexual main character. This is well handled by Roanhorse, and I love this representation in fantasy!

The setting of the novel is based on the Indigenous Americas, a setting that I don’t have much knowledge on, but I loved every new thing I discovered. Everything was fresh to me!

Overall I adored everything about Black Sun. I will definitely be buying a physical copy of the novel, and I cannot wait to see where the series is going next!

I absolutely loved this book. The world-building is based on Pre-Columbian American myths and legends. There is a wide range of complex characters and representation of gender and sexuality are suberb, they are not the point of the story nor are they ignored. They are simply described and made part of the story. Can't wait for the sequel!

I flew through this book as I really didn't want to put it down for even one moment. An epic fantasy inspired by pre-Columbian indigenous cultures, the world-building is richly detailed and the characters are beautifully crafted. I didn't have a favourite POV as all of them were engaging but Xiala was probably my favourite character. I can't wait for book 2!

Black Sun grabbed my attention with the first chapter — and then took it and buried it, methodically, with every page I read on, until I could find no more motivation to continue. I was simply not enjoying it.

A few observations. I wanted to read the book because of the recommendations promising a unique fantasy of a pre-Columbian America. I found it misleading: if anything, that tripped me up for the first several chapters before I could adjust my expectations. I went in expecting something closer to a historic fantasy with a cultural focus, but it is a secondary world fantasy where people act and talk a lot like modern people. I am always a huge proponent of diversity in my books, but coming in expecting some Inca and Maya magic and getting neopronouns instead was kinda disorienting. Pre-Columbian America Lite would be a more realistic expectation to have when going into the book.

I couldn’t connect to any of the characters. It’s a mixed bag of informed awesomeness vs on-page incompetence (if a self-made woman who made her way out of the slums into the highest position in priesthood is thrown off by the pettiest middle-schoolest scheming ever, how am I supposed to believe her competence), incredibly slow pacing (if the whole plot is “get a character from point A to point B” with no closure then maybe — just maybe — the story could have been started at a later point) and a decision to narrate through multiple POVs, including MULTIPLE POVS OF THE SAME PERSON THROUGH THE AGES. I do not need a temporal aerial picture of a character’s life at the cost of any interest I might have in what they are supposed to do in the story now. And most of the POVs were either joyless, full of juvenile bickering or awkward romance, or both; the overall character competence & EQ levels are somewhere even below my buried attention span.

On top of characters that didn't grab me, there is the worldbuilding that didn’t wow me. The magical, creepy feeling of the first chapter seems a fluke, compared to the rest, which wasn’t doing show-don’t-tell much. You had glimpses of interesting things — I appreciated the epigraphs from a commissioned report that did a good job of fleshing out things about the speaker’s culture as it did of the things the report references — but the rest of the book didn’t do anything interesting. Too sketchy in places, mixed messages (what am I supposed to make of the role of women in this society, after all?), droning in others… And none of it immersive.

Thanks to #NetGalley for providing me a copy of #BlackSun. All opinions are my own.

Not 100% sure what to think of this. I enjoyed the world building and the story behind it, the characters were interesting but the story felt pretty political which I lost interest in places. FYI - there's also alot of blood and gore which is not really my thing...

I didn't realise it was a fantasy novel until I started reading it. Fantasy isn't usually my thing, as my imagination doesn't really work that way, but I absolutely loved Black Sun.

I loved Serapio and Xiala as characters, and the exploration of how their backstories led them to be the people they are now. The world-building is also excellent, and so visual, I could almost see the priests on the Rock, and the gambling den on the Maw. The novel was also really action packed, a style I enjoy, as I sped through the novel as I was desperate to find out how it ended. I did feel however, that given the huge build-up to the confrontation between Serapio and the priests, that I wanted to see that final battle go on for longer, in a more detailed way. I also wanted the outcome to be slightly more decisive, though I appreciate that it left lots of intriguing threads that I'm sure the sequel will pick up.

Black Sun reminded me of Jaine Fenn's Shadowlands series of books (Broken Shadow and Hidden Sun), which I also really enjoyed, so if you are looking for something to read until the Black Sun sequel is published, I suggest you check them out.

I loved this book so much! The world and the characters were so incredible and complex and I just loved everything about it.

I had no idea what to expect when I started reading but this book crawled into my heart and burrowed itself in and made itself at home. From the storytelling to the world building to the characters, every single thing about this book is absolutely phenomenal.

The story starts with a line that had me completely hooked and I knew this book would hurt me. The first chapter is set 10 years before the events in this story and it creates an ominous start for the book with hints as to the darkness to come. I loved seeing this before we start as it gave us some important insight without giving away the entire story and plot. The story slowly builds us up to the finale where the separate stories of each of the characters start to merge and we see how the different parts we saw in the book fit together. And what a finale it was, it had me completely enthralled and worried for the lives of all the characters hoping for an outcome where they all survive yet having that sinking feeling that will that even be possible and being left on an ending that had me screaming.

Usually, when someone describes a man as harmless, he ends up being a villain.

The characters are all so complex and we see how none of them are clear cut good or bad. They have been shaped by their circumstances and events that took place even before they were born. They have to deal with the consequences of those that are no longer there to be taken account of and it was so interesting to see which of these characters were truly the villain or even if there was a single villain. Rebecca did this so well and I was rooting for each character even though they each had their flaws they were all working to make things better for their people or trying to survive and yet not seeing how their decisions impact others outside of who they consider their own.

Xiala was such a wonderful character and I just loved slowly learning about her and the people she came from. The Teek are so interesting and the things she even learns about herself along this journey made me love her even more. I loved her confidence and how she cared for the people she was in charge of and that her skills and ability had made her somewhat respected even though the men didn’t generally accept women as captains. Her relationship with Serapio was also so wonderful. I just loved their tentative friendship and how they found comfort in each other and how it slowly grew to something more. I just love them.

A man with a destiny is a man who fears nothing.

Serapio is fascinating, he is truly been shaped by others and has been honed to be a weapon to seek vengeance for an injustice that happened before he was born but he has no say in whether he wanted that or not. His destiny is all he has known and lived and breathed and seeing what happens at the end my heart felt for him but I also wanted to scream at him to not do it.

Narampa was another interesting character, she has fought her way to the top to become the sun priest but despite this she is never truly accepted by her peers because of where she came from. She is trying to make things better for them but they don’t want to accept what she is doing and yet while she works tirelessly for those who scorn her, her family and people she grew up with are ignored and continue to suffer and even she looks down on them. Yet when she needs help she ends up turning to those she left behind. It was really interesting to see how no matter how high you rise those in power won’t accept you, if you aren’t one of them.

I am the only storm that matters now, and there is no shelter from what I bring.

One of my favourite things in this book was that it was inspired by Pre Columbian America and the whole world and mythology that Rebecca has created was so stunningly beautiful and honestly a breath of fresh air. It had so much depth and the culture and the way of life, I loved it so much. Indigenous cultures are so beautiful and wonderful and truly I hope we get more books with their cultures showing just how rich these cultures are.

This book had me completely enthralled and while I loved all the characters, Xiala and Serapio stole my heart and I just need to know more about them and see more of them. This is a book that will have you mesmerised by the world and falling in love with the characters and you will be left thinking about this book long after you have finished it.

I enjoyed this book so much; it's an epic fantasy inspired by pre-Columbian America that I really didn't want to end.
The world-building was, pun intended, out of this world. I love the different POVs and the chapters jumping through time - I was worried I might get confused but it worked so well.
I was also impressed with the beautiful prose, the characters, and the novel's inclusivity (LGBTQ+ and disabled characters).

I am now impatiently waiting for the next book in the series.

The story is told from 4 perspectives which can make it complicated but they are all very different and see the world very differently which sets them apart. I never got confused with who was narrating which to me is a big plus!

The world-building is a bit steep in the beginning but it's needed. There is a lot to talk about and for the first three chapters, I was confused. But as the story pulls you through it all comes clear. By 30% in I felt steady within the story and was thoroughly enjoying it. I didn't question the twists and turns as they all seemed logical and fitted into the story.

I loved how one part of the story was travelling while the other part was mostly political and behind the scenes. But I preferred the sea voyage. Maybe I'm just partial to stories set at sea...

Is it LGBT+?
Yup! There are characters with xe/xir pronouns and both main and side characters who are not straight :)

Rebecca Roanhorse's writing is on point. I had no issues with spelling or sentence structure.

I can't wait to see where things going in the future and I look forward to the next instalment.

Also, I'm so surprised that it's January and I might have found my favourite character of 2021 already. I didn't even have a favourite character in 2020! This is nuts! Xiala forever!

I adored this book- it's a rich fantasy set in a world unlike any other I've read before, and the intertwining politics and religion keep the plot compelling while the characters, especially Nara, Xiala and Serapio, are all well drawn and fun to spend time with. Even if Serapio is a bit too fond of murder, but I suppose being raised to be the avatar of a murderous crow god does that to you.

I highly recommend this to anyone who has enjoyed the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms books, or anything by Kate Elliott. You won't be disappointed.

Thank you to Rebellion for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is one I definitely picked up because of the hype. Back when this came out in the US in 2020, I saw so many people raving about this book, and so I had to give it a try. Going into it, I honestly had barely any idea what it was about, and kind of thought it was going to be more of a sci-fi book judging by the cover. This was obviously quite far off, and I'm so GLAD about it. Black Sun is a magical story inspired by the cultures of the pre-Columbian Americas, and was unlike anything I've read before. The actual magical elements were fascinating, and I loved how the history behind it wasn't your run of the mill European mythology we've all seen time and time again.

The storyline is definitely quite complicated and consists of 4 main interwoven characters, each with some kind of connection to the others. Xiala and Serapio are the main focus of the book, and are the two main characters that we see actually interact and spend a lot of time together in this book. Xiala was probably my favourite character, her unapologetic general badassery was so good to read, and I fell in love with her instantly. I loved her background as a Teek, and I would love to learn more about her magic in later books. Serapio was a super interesting character, who I also happened to adore. He's a character who was deprived of a "normal" upbringing and childhood, and was raised and tutored being told that he is a vessel for the Crow God, and will come to serve to provide vengeance for the murder of his ancestors. His arc was particularly interesting out of all the characters, as was his struggle after meeting Xiala with knowing what paths he really wants to take. His and Xiala's relationship was so sweet and filled with such yearning and pining, and I absolutely need more in the next books.

The other two main characters definitely serve a lesser role in this book, but their chapters were still interesting nonetheless. I particularly enjoyed Naranpa's plotline, probably just because I love a good murder mystery and detective plot. Okoa was probably my least favourite plot, purely because we got to see very little of him. But after the ending of this book, I expect he will get a bigger role in the next instalment that I'm intrigued to see play out.

Something I loved about this book was its sheer unapologetic and casual way it contained LGBTQ+ characters. Several of the characters are trans or non-binary, and Xiala herself is bisexual. Obviously the representation is already something to be commended, but I really did appreciate how Roanhorse didn't make their existence a big deal, and totally normal. 100% props to her for that, we need more of that in books.

In all honesty, the only reason this book doesn't get a 5 from me is just because I would have liked to have seen more happen overall. This was definitely a great setup for the next books in the series, and I absolutely don't think that this book was boring, it just definitely felt very much like the foundation for the rest of the series. This obviously isn't an inherently bad thing, just something I picked up on once I finished.

Overall though, I really recommend this book for any fantasy lovers out there. It feels very fresh and unique, and definitely stands out amongst your typical Western European-based fantasy stories.