This was a good fantasy, but I was expecting more...

The City of Stardust focuses on Violet Everly and her family's curse, in which the brightest star of each generation disappears and she fears to be next. She must find a way to break that curse and, to do that, she must discover more about this magical world she's been kept away from all her life.

I had such high hopes for this one because I'd heard amazing things about it, but, even though it grabbed my attention in many moments, it didn't really live up to what it was setting itself up to be. I couldn't really connect with the characters and I didn't think the author made us care about them, which made the stakes very low for me because I didn't really care what happened to any of them. This was also true of the romance/couple in the book; I felt they lacked chemistry and their relationship was not very believable. Also, the world-building was quite interesting with the keys that could open doors to any place you'd ever been, but there wasn't enough of it, in my opinion; I thought there were too many loose ends and questions unanswered there and I did want to learn more about how this world worked.

With that said, the writing style was good and fast-paced, so I do intend on reading the author's next book, as I understand this was her debut.

Thank you very much to Hodderscape/Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

3.5 stars. I have so many complicated feelings about this book, so let’s break it down by writing elements before I lose my mind.

First, the prose is beautiful. It flows quite well most of the time, and gives the story this dream-like quality that fits the material. It’s definitely what allowed me to keep going, keep that momentum. Because of that, however, it can be intangible, not lending itself very well to character interactions or the suspension/mystery plot thread, and focusing more on guiding the reader through the story and Violet’s thoughts. This could work with a less straightforward/more complex perspective, and if the plot itself wasn’t this concrete in opposition.

Unfortunately, this also impacted the pacing. On the one hand, the lovely prose masked that a bit. It is a bit like being put on a trance, and I do love the effect. On the other hand, I don’t think we knew where we were going most of the time. Violet had a purpose, but every step leading her there felt random and unfocused. Talk to this person, acquire this object we’ve never talked or heard about before, go to this place that this person mysteriously knows about for no good reason. And the last 20% just lingered for, again, no reason. The ending was one of obvious four (if not the more obvious of them all), so there was no true suspense. Do I think the ending made sense? Well, yes. It fits and it’s where it should end, but the execution was a tad lacking for me.

As for the world, it is so magical. It truly feels like its scope was larger than the story itself, and reminded me of His Dark Materials, but also a bit of Narnia. I was constantly craving more, wondering about the lore, certain characters’ backstories, further exploring what reveurite could do, what doors we could cross. But then… we didn’t. It’s almost a crime that we barely get to interact with reveurite and that the true adventures to lands unknown happen off-screen. I was promised magic and adventure throughout the first 25% of the book to then get glimpses of some of the world’s more iconic cities and have three off-brand tarot readings? I just wish we’d taken full advantage of the captivating world Summers crafted.

Next is the character work. It was very middle of the road for me. We are told Everlys are stubborn, loyal, and brave, and so… that is exactly what Violet is and nothing else. My biggest issue with her character is how this young woman went from being so incredibly sheltered, never allowed outside the house, to suddenly working at a café, to then being very proficient at rubbing elbows with the crème de la crème of society. (Also, the reason why she left is just… Eh. Did not convince me. I get why we had to, but that’s precisely why it felt more forced than organically woven into the story.) It’s implied that before this, Marianne (Violet’s mother) also kept her quite sheltered, so I don’t see how it’s possible for Violet to be so at ease in social settings and negotiations. Where is the struggle? This is worsened by the fact that we don’t actually see most of those conversations, we’re only told that she did this and that, and then see one or two of them where those connections are already established.

Then there’s Aleksander. Same problem. We get to see how he’s mistreated, but only told of the good times. As a reader, I shouldn’t have to fill in the blanks of the abusive cycle. If you want to have that discussion in a book, do it properly and respectfully. His relationship with Violet was also not very believable to me, especially from her side. This woman did the same thing thrice hoping for a different outcome, and because this is fiction, she succeeded. Sort of. Then there’s Caspian, who appears basically three times to have three short interactions with Violet, but we’re supposed to believe he’d bend the rules/stick out his neck for her because she’s just that intriguing and worth it. Not once, but twice at that.

The uncles were fine, if a bit one note, which is a shame, since I could see the potential and the relationship between them and Violet was very endearing. Penelope was also fine, if again not as complex as probably intended. If you want to bend basic human morality to allow for Penny’s actions and perspective, that betrayal is not enough, regardless of whichever version of the story is true. (I liked the fact that there were different versions, though. Nice touch. I also liked the parallels with Violet and Aleksander. It’s the old knowledge/power vs. love conundrum at play again.)

All in all, this book kept jumping forward to compensate for a slower pacing when a tighter narrative deadline and the details of the curse being lesser known would have solved most of these problems. It's not common that I ask for a book to be split in two, but that’s exactly what should have happened here, in my opinion. I would never be mad at more of this author’s writing, after all, and I do think she shows tremendous promise and I’m looking forward to her future projects.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Georgia Summers and Redhook for the opportunity to read and review this book.

A whimsical book of big adventures and even bigger characters.

The plot of this book follows Violet Everly - a young woman who's family is cursed. She sets out to break the curse, find her mother and escape her fate all before time runs out and the mysterious Penelope claims her blood debt.

I want to start by saying this book is beautifully written. It is almost poetic and times and the plot is extremely character driven. Violet is a strong lead character and her determination and love for her family really shines through.

The other characters - namely Alexander and Penelope - are equally well built and you understand everything they are feeling/thinking.

My complaint is not enough explanation for the actual plot. The book is fast pacedn as Violet only has a year to break the curse, but it would often jump quickly through time and bigger events weren't always well explained.

I really wanted more detail on the astrals and the world and felt this was what lacked slightly.

It was still beautiful and it compelled me enough to continue reading to find out how it ended.

A gorgeous, magical adventure with doors, keys and a dash of the most swoony romance!

I enjoyed the whimsical writing, the stand out characters and the imagery., This is a spellbinding tale that will enchant fans of fantasy and romance alike. With its captivating world-building, unforgettable characters, and passionate romance, this book is sure to leave a lasting impression and earn a special place on the bookshelves of readers everywhere. Highly recommended for anyone in search of an escape into a world of magic, adventure, and true love.

Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the e-arc!

I loved this book, it felt so poetic and real at the same time. The characters were believable even if maybe not that relatable, the relationship between the two main characters was very interesting and I found myself often rooting for the two at the same time when... well if you've read the book, you know.
I liked how the stories became legends even for the protagonists themselves.
I wish this book had been longer because I wanted more!

The book has a premise that caught my attention, but it did not live up to my expectations.
The plot is chaotic, at the beginning the pacing is very fast and then very, very slow. The main characters have almost no chemistry and develop very little or very poorly, sometimes the female protagonist seems very innocent and has not learned anything, normal when you spend the first 20 years of your life without leaving home or interacting with children your age, and then it seems that she is smarter than the Scholars.
The resolution of the conflict seems anticlimactic to me, after 300 pages of pure evil on Penelope's part, it's over in two paragraphs and a fight that is barely described. Besides, the reasons why Penelope degenerates so much are not clear to me.
There are constantly recurring mysteries, such as the identity of Violet's father and the location of her mother, both of which remain unresolved, at least in my opinion.
The secondary characters are many, have two lines and do not help at all to advance or change the story of the protagonist, they are quite flat, have little personality or depth.
It was a very disappointing book, it had a lot of potential but the execution left a lot to be desired.

“A curse can be many things. A wish left out to spoil in the sun, putrid and soft, leaving behind only calcified desire and oxidised envy. Or a poisoned chalice, a mistake tattooed across an entire family tree, with every generation promising, vowing to never sip until they do. Sometimes, it’s a deal and bad luck conspiring like old grifters closing in on an easy mark. For the Everlys, it begins with stardust.”

City of Stardust is a whimsical flight of fantasy of magical families, the struggle to hoard power and the need of the Everly’s to break a curse that has long plagued their family. The world-building is unique albeit a little difficult to grasp despite the beautiful prose flowing throughout the story.

You are struck by the selfishness of characters who are unwilling or unable to consider the impact of their decisions beyond themselves and it underscores the desperate need for self-preservation. This story has it all, moments of violence, love, cruelty and beauty while encompassing characters who are flawed, real and believable.

This is bound to appeal to lovers of Caraval and other such whimsical tales, with beautiful atmospheric writing and the creation of a fantastical world, that exists alongside the real world and unique magical system.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the opportunity to read this.

I wanted to like The City of Stardust more than I actually did, unfortunately. Although the writing was beautiful and whimsical, I felt that it was a bit slow in places and I didn't connect to the characters as much as I wanted to, perhaps because it was written in third person present POV. The style actually reminded me of Laini Taylor's novels and they were always a bit hit or miss for me.

I really enjoyed this book. Violet Everly is a strong young woman fighting against her families curse that has been going back for generations. The details of the worlds inhabited in this book and the craftsmanship was great. I’ll be looking out for more from this author in the future.

I admit, I was drawn in by the cover.

Violet Everly’s family is cursed. A curse was put on the family thousands of years ago. Each generation the family has to hand over the most promising Everly to Penelope, an ageless woman. The ‘sacrificed’ Everly would then become a scholar in Penelope’s world. No one knows what the Everly family did thousands of years ago to be cursed, but everyone in the family knows that there has to be a sacrifice once every generation. Marianne, Violet’s mother, was supposed to be the last generation’s sacrifice, but she vanished when Violet was ten. Penelope gave Violet's uncles ten years to find Marianne, or she would come to collect Violet. Now Violet needs to find her mother or break the curse to free the Everlys, otherwise she'd be sacrificed to Penelope. That is my take on what this book is about.

I did not like the book. I was confused by the flowery language that packs a lot of words into a sentence which eventually doesn’t tell me anything. Further confusion was created by the omniscient narrator switching between different POVs from one paragraph to the next. All that is interspersed with fairy tale interludes. Set in present tense, so that distinguishing between what timeline (present or past) and which character I was following was confusing. It just didn’t work for me.

World-building is essential in fantasy novels, yet within all that flowery language I couldn’t find an explanation for how the magic system works, what kind of curse was put on the Everly’s and why, and quite frankly, by about 60% of the book, I didn’t really care anymore. I still finished the book but only to see what explanation there might be for the curse. I still don’t know.

I hope that the finished book was less of a mess than the ARC I read.

This is definitely going to be one of my top fantasy reads for 2024! This is a high-stakes adventure mixed with coming-of-age, somewhat reminiscent of Mistborn. The magic system is exquisitely nuanced, yet remains absolutely accessible and understandable.

I was gasping at practically every chapter, with each new revelation and character layer being peeled back. Georgia Summers has a talent for making each and every one of her characters so incredibly real, all with twisting backstories and complex relationships; everyone is a person in their own right and I would definitely look forward to sequels featuring them.

The story is paced well, and I felt as if I were holding my breath all the way. The romance, mystery and suspense were top-tier and kept me on the edge of the seat all the way to the end. Reading (and listening) my way to the culmination felt as if I were entering some warped world where anything could be thrown at me, and I absolutely adore the author for that, because she could have said anything in her fantastic lyrical prose and I would have fallen for it instantly. The duality of her characters and her entire world is simply bewitching, and the multiple worlds she builds within one story are stunning.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodderscape for the ARC!!

I absolutely loved the prologue, it pulls you in immediately and I can only scream this is how you start a book. Admittedly, it set the expectations quite high and maybe a bit too high, as well. However, the book and the characters were quite enjoyable, the plot was interesting and the writing style was great.

This was a very enjoyable read from a debut author. The blurb drew my interest straight away and I really liked the simplistic beauty of the cover, which fits the story perfectly.

From the first page, I knew I would like the story and it didn't disappoint. There's plenty of intrigue at the beginning when you have to keep reading to uncover the mystery along with Violet. As she grows up and the story develops, secrets are revealed, trust is broken and Violet must face up to her fate or do all in her power to change it. Her journey of discovery drags you along and the final confrontation is satisfying.

There is a certain strangeness to the world Georgia Summers has created which reminds me of Neil Gaiman.

I'm looking forward to more books by this author.

This is the perfect example of a book that had the potential to be something truly great but the execution just didn't quite hit the mark. While it was enjoyable enough, it felt lacking in context and character depth. It had issues with pacing and plot holes and although the descriptive writing was very immersive, by the end of the book I still felt as though I didn't have a complete grasp of the world and curse (although, this may very well have just been a me problem.) That being said, it held my attention and I'm sure it will captivate many readers but ultimately didn't blow me away as I'd hoped it would.

3 stars

This was a really interesting story with a feisty, tenacious main character. She is so curious and this curiosity is what sends her on her journey which starts with her wanting to find her mother and eventually becomes her learning to be true to herself and finding her own path in life.

The narration was good and gave that atmospheric vibe of the book though I do wish there was more differentiation between characters in the voices to make it easier to keep up with the story.

I loved the writing style, it was beautiful and created an atmospheric story though it make it hard to completely feel immersed in the story as it being in third person, it created distance from the characters so I didn’t truly feel compelled by them and want to root for them.

There was some issues in pacing and at times the story felt slow and then lots happened all at once. And I do wish there was more world building. Though my main issue is the ending felt weak and I was left wondering why we went through the whole story and everything that happened.

I did like how there are keys to open other worlds and pulled at my booknerd heart. Where we all want to be able to find a hidden door to a magical world like the ones we read about. And this did keep me reading and wanting to explore.

A debut that fell somewhat flat for me.

The writing was the highlight of the book for me. Unfortunately, for me, there isn’t enough depth to the plot, and I couldn’t connect of the characters.

I loved the concept of keys to the world, it was original. But unfortunately, it wasn’t explored enough. Many details are missing, some that would have given the story more substance and would have help build the story a bit better. I would have liked to know more about this world, and most things are left unexplained.

Then there’s the multiple POVs. I would have preferred to have the book divided into the different perspectives, instead of jumping between them inside each chapter. It didn’t help that this version of the ebook didn’t come with the proper scene breaks. It took me a while to remember what the last thing was this character did and where they were previously.

This lack of markers also made it a challenge to distinguish between the present story and the past, as the story weaves between both. It was tiresome to try and keep up and took away my dedication to the story.

The pacing is also off. The beginning is very slow, and I felt like the climax came in the middle of the story and not at the end. The conclusion was so simple, I felt more in previous scenes. The epilogue added nothing to the story, and I don’t think there’s a need for it.

The main character Violet got on my nerves sometimes. I thought she would grow up throughout her ordeals and out on the other side with a backbone, and unfortunately, she doesn’t. She grows a bit braver, yes, but not in maturity. Aleksander, the male lead, had potential with his tragic grey character arc, but he wasn’t developed properly either. I really didn’t feel the romance between Violet and Aleksander, I don’t think she ever fully understood him, while she was so easy to read. Penelope was portraited as pure evil, appearing just to show how mean she can be. Her POVs didn’t give her more substance, just shows her ambition and her lack of a strong motive for her actions. The side characters and their appearances felt random and disconnected from the story.

All in all, the book had potential, but it felt flat for me with its superficial descriptions and superficial characters. It needed far more development and less jumping between characters to get my interest. There’s room for improvement.

“The City of Stardust” is an absorbing and enchanting debut fantasy novel from Georgia Summers.

The story transports you into a world not dissimilar to ours but one connected to an another World through doors not everyone can use, where so called, Scholars manipulate a metal with magical properties and the Gods of myth and legend control the actions of some. Young Violet Everly knows nothing of this magic. She only knows of fairytales, stories and facts from her beloved books and embellishes the story of how her Mother abandoned her one night in the care of her Uncle in order to go on an adventure to try and break the family “curse”. At 12, she knows nothing of the truth. She doesn’t know where or why her Mother, Marianne Everly, left. The “curse” is her own understanding of family chat, overheard & embellished by an imaginative child.

That is until one night a strange lady arrives dragging her young assistant, Aleksander, with her. That night Aleksander shows her a glimmer of magic and Violet’s path will change forever. Because of that lady, Penelope, Violet, will spend the next 10 years trying to break the family “curse” searching for her Mother, finding out about magic, brushing shoulders with dignitaries, scholars, making friends and enemies visiting beautiful cities, libraries and attending parties. Enjoying the history, magic, thrills, fear, comforts and pain of her quest. Meanwhile, Aleksander is tasked with finding out where Marianne Everly is too. To do so he needs to befriend Violet.

The settings were beautifully described and added to the storyline without any gratuitous detail. The characters of Violet and Aleksander had so much depth. All their hopes, dreams and flaws were laid bare in the narrative. I found myself entirely captivated by their love, hate relationship. I was willing them both to succeed in their “quests”, despite knowing that their aim was not the same but that their relationship and personalities might mean their end game would result in bloodshed, fireworks and a fantastic story.

This is a five star read. I couldn’t put it down and look forward to reading more books by Georgia Summers in the future.

I had high hopes for this one, but unfortunately it fell a little bit flat. Whilst I loved the storyline, I did find it hard to follow in areas. Some parts felt a little unanswered and I found it hard to connect with any of the characters. Enjoyed the last 40% the most, I loved Violet’s growth throughout the book and the world-walking was fabulous, really made me want to step through a door to somewhere magical.

I am actually a bit sad to leave this review, the reason being this book ended up being a big flop.

The story line made you want so much more and not a lot of world building and background wasn't fleshed out.

This book an amazing stand alone if the author fleshed out more.

A well written disappointment.
This book has an interesting idea, and it is certainly well written. Overall, however, it just felt boring: nothing happened, and the characters were one dimensional and annoying: Violet in particular has no personality, expect that she grew up alone but with plenty of books, and that she is naive - the worst possible combination to me, as I very much dislike when people who read a lot of fiction are depicted as naive when it comes to people: it is a stupid trope that does not align with the reality that reading fiction actually teacher you a lot about other people perspectives. The love story was boring and annoying: I didn't want Violet and Aleksander to get together, they did just because they were the only 2 actual characters in the book, and they made no sense. I hated how Violet was exceptionally naive about him. Penelope is a bad bad guy, who is just bad.
All of this would have merited 3 stars, but there were 2 aspects that irked me - this is a me thing, so the rating might be a bit skewed on the low end. First this book wanted so much to be The Starless Sea, and failed so spectacularly, that it made me question whether I actually liked The Starless Sea. And I adored The Starless Sea, I don't appreciate a bad copy making me doubt it. Secondly, but most importantly, there is a lot of young children cruelty in the book - not just that, but also abduction. This triggers me a lot, and I am a very hard sell on it. At the 4th detailed description, I was done - it didn't really serve the plot, so it was just there for shock value. If it had recounted Aleksander story in more detail, including the cruelty, I would have accepted, but random children cruelty, just to hammer the point that the big bad is bad, is really not for me.
I wanted to like this book, I did, but at the end of the day it was just boring.