Review: Across a Star-Swept Sea

ACROSS A STAR-SWEPT SEA
For Darkness Shows the Stars #2
Diana Peterfreund
Young Adult/Dystopian
464 pages
Balzer + Bray
Available Now
Source: BEA

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Centuries after wars nearly destroyed civilization, the two islands of New Pacifica stand alone, a terraformed paradise where even the Reduction—the devastating brain disorder that sparked the wars—is a distant memory. Yet on the isle of Galatea, an uprising against the ruling aristocrats has turned deadly. The revolutionaries’ weapon is a drug that damages their enemies’ brains, and the only hope is rescue by a mysterious spy known as the Wild Poppy.

On the neighboring island of Albion, no one suspects that the Wild Poppy is actually famously frivolous aristocrat Persis Blake. The teenager uses her shallow, socialite trappings to hide her true purpose: her gossipy flutternotes are encrypted plans, her pampered sea mink is genetically engineered for spying, and her well-publicized new romance with handsome Galatean medic Justen Helo… is her most dangerous mission ever.

Though Persis is falling for Justen, she can’t risk showing him her true self, especially once she learns he’s hiding far more than simply his disenchantment with his country’s revolution and his undeniable attraction to the silly socialite he’s pretending to love. His darkest secret could plunge both islands into a new dark age, and Persis realizes that when it comes to Justen Helo, she’s not only risking her heart, she’s risking the world she’s sworn to protect.

In this thrilling adventure inspired by The Scarlet Pimpernel, Diana Peterfreund creates an exquisitely rendered world where nothing is as it seems and two teens with very different pasts fight for a future only they dare to imagine.

MY THOUGHTS
Across a Star-Swept Sea is another richly told story from Ms. Peterfreund, full of the subtlety and nuance that was so deeply moving in For Darkness Shows the Stars and topped off with a stunning heroine who fights with every weapon in her impressive arsenal. The class distinctions in this world and the complicated history of New Pacifica can at times be difficult to wade through, particularly with respect to the genetic complexities of the Reduced, the Helo Cure, and the latent side effects of said cure, but the characters shine so brightly from the pages that we can’t help but be drawn to them like crows to a shiny bauble, caught up in their various causes and willing them to succeed with the turn of every page.

As mentioned above, Persis Blake is a striking young woman–both outside and in–with a sharp mind that unfortunately means very little in her corner of the world because it’s a mind regrettably nestled into a head attached to a female body. Women hold little standing in Albion other than as pretty ornamentation to be passed from the hands of father or brother to husband, but Persis is never once hampered by her gender, instead using her lofty but ultimately meaningless aristocratic status to daze and distract those around her from the strong, independent, and infinitely capable person currently dancing circles around everyone with her escapades as the Wild Poppy.

She plays the part of the vapid, fashion-obsessed rich girl convincingly, but it’s almost appalling how easily Justen and the rest of society (aside from her parents and core group of friends) jump to the conclusions she breezily hands them with a flick of her hair and a cock of her pretty head. She shows them lies they’re all too eager to swallow down with little resistance, and we find ourselves outrageously amused despite the seriousness of the revolution with how flawlessly Persis casts her spell of stupidity, dazzling everyone with her bright clothes and empty chatter while hitting the enemy where it hurts. We stand behind her and beside her from page one to four hundred and fifty, continuously impressed by her bravery and her cunning, and wishing again and again we could volunteer ourselves for the League of the Wild Poppy.

Across a Star-Swept Sea is not as emotionally challenging or gut-wrenching as its companion in terms of the romance, Justen and Persis’s relationship not quite on the level of Elliott and Kai’s pain-filled history of love, friendship and betrayal, but the two of them are thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless. The tension between them comes not from history but from expectation, or a lack thereof as Justen remains content to take Persis at face value, so very certain she can’t help him right his wrongs and make his amends while we readers get to sit back, shake our heads, and wait breathlessly for the moment he realizes how thoroughly she’s bested him. I don’t know if there are to be more books in this stunning series of retellings, but I’m hoping Ms. Peterfreund isn’t done treating us to this darkly beautiful future.

Rating: 4/5
 

Find Diana:

Website • Blog • Facebook • Twitter • Goodreads • Amazon

This book was given to me by the publisher at BEA free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Super Six Sunday: Love Stories

Inspired by Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and The Bookish, Super Six Sunday, a new feature from the fabulous ladies at Bewitched Bookworms, has different book-related topics each week and asks participants to address each topic in the form of a list of six. Obviously.

This week's topic is love stories, and given how much I love romance, it's both an awesome and a terrible prompt for me. Awesome because there are so many amazing love stories out there that have made me swoon, and terrible because it was nearly impossible to narrow it down to just six. I had to limit the topic even further in my head in order to choose books, so I went with love stories that feature really strong heroines, emotionally and physically, who aren't afraid to challenge the men in their lives. I think all six of the below women push buttons, question, and frustrate their men, but they are also loyal, powerful in their own ways, and are absolute equal partners in the relationship. Love them.

KISS OF SNOW (Psy-Changeling #10)

Nalini Singh • Adult Paranormal Romance

Nalini Singh is one of my very favorite authors, and her Psy-Changeling paranormal romance series has been one I've been obsessed with for years. We meet Hawke and Sienna in book one, but it takes another 8 books–yes eight, I died a little inside when each book that released wasn't theirs–before they finally get together. To be fair, they need all that time as Sienna is significantly younger than Hawke, but their journey in this book is one I've taken with them over and over again and will continue to do so for years to come.

DARKFEVER (Fever Series)

Karen Marie Moning • Adult Urban Fantasy

I'm sure many of you have heard the word Barrons uttered (or exhaled on a shaky breath full of longing) even if you haven't yet read this series. Jericho Barrons is not your typical romance hero. He's often neither romantic nor heroic. He's downright cruel at times and the force of his personality can be overwhelming. It's as easy to hate him as it is to love him, but Mac holds her own and never takes a step back when he takes a threatening step forward. Instead, she meets him with a step of her own, and the two of them fight, taunt, argue and then explode romantically as the series continues, and I just can't recommend their story enough. It's definitely NOT a conventional love story in any way, and that's part of what I like so much about the two of them.

TRUE

Erin McCarthy • Contemporary New Adult

True came to be in my hands just at the moment when the New Adult genre got to be at its most frustrating for me, the angst and drama of the relationships starting to test my patience and grate on my nerves, but then along came Rory. Rory wouldn't know how to play a game romantically with a guy if someone gave her a series of directions to review beforehand, and her honesty with everything she's feeling quickly led her to the top of my favorite heroines list. Tyler is a bit more cliched - a bad boy with a difficult past, but he's not nearly as superficial as labeling him a bad boy makes him seem, and I couldn't have loved him with Rory any more if I'd tried.

FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS

Diana Peterfreund • Young Adult/Dystopian

This story is one of the most romantic stories I've read where the hero and heroine don't even do so much as kiss on page. Elliot and Kai are all tension and hurt, dancing around one another as they search desperately in each other for the person they knew when they were younger, but whereas Kai takes his opportunities to land his emotional punches, Elliot always pulls hers, earning my respect and her place on this list. Despite all the lingering pain between them, there are such beautiful moments in this tale, and I always look forward to going back and spending time with Elliot an Kai on a re-read.

UNRAVELING

Elizabeth Norris • Paranormal Young Adult/SciFi

Unraveling is one of those books that took me by complete surprise, the blurb initially one that held no interest for me, but when I was lucky enough to get a review copy I decided I might as well give it a try. I fell in love with Janelle on nearly the first page, her sense of humor and low tolerance for the petty games of the popular crowd winning me over immediately. When Ben enters the picture there is no swooning (except on my part), and their relationship is one of tentative friendship and wary attraction for a long time before it becomes something much more heartwarming.

ANGELFALL

Susan Ee • Paranormal Young Adult

Like Unraveling, Angelfall was a complete surprise for me, a story I entered into not really knowing what to expect but I quickly found myself blown away. Penryn is fiercely protective of her younger sister, and when she gets taken, embarks on a long and terrifying journey with the dubious help of wingless angel Raffe to find her again. I loved everything about this book and the relationship between Penryn and Raffe, the antagonism and distrust between them ever-so slowly fading to leave genuine affection in its place. Again, a bit darker and less traditional of a love story, but strikingly memorable and beautiful just the same.

Those are six of my very favorites, what love story would top your list?

Waiting on Wednesday: Across A Star-Swept Sea

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking The Spine and is a fun way to see what books other bloggers just can't wait to get their hands on!

ACROSS A STAR-SWEPT SEA

Diana Peterfreund

Young Adult

Releases October 15th

Balzer + Bray

THE STORY (from Goodreads)

Centuries after wars nearly destroyed civilization, the two islands of New Pacifica stand alone, a terraformed paradise where even the Reduction—the devastating brain disorder that sparked the wars—is a distant memory. Yet on the isle of Galatea, an uprising against the ruling aristocrats has turned deadly. The revolutionaries’ weapon is a drug that damages their enemies’ brains, and the only hope is rescue by a mysterious spy known as the Wild Poppy.

On the neighboring island of Albion, no one suspects that the Wild Poppy is actually famously frivolous aristocrat Persis Blake. The teenager uses her shallow, socialite trappings to hide her true purpose: her gossipy flutternotes are encrypted plans, her pampered sea mink is genetically engineered for spying, and her well-publicized new romance with handsome Galatean medic Justen Helo… is her most dangerous mission ever.

Though Persis is falling for Justen, she can’t risk showing him her true self, especially once she learns he’s hiding far more than simply his disenchantment with his country’s revolution and his undeniable attraction to the silly socialite he’s pretending to love. His darkest secret could plunge both islands into a new dark age, and Persis realizes that when it comes to Justen Helo, she’s not only risking her heart, she’s risking the world she’s sworn to protect.

In this thrilling adventure inspired by The Scarlet Pimpernel, Diana Peterfreund creates an exquisitely rendered world where nothing is as it seems and two teens with very different pasts fight for a future only they dare to imagine.

For Darkness Shows the Stars was one of my absolute favorite reads last year, so I'm beyond excited for this book even though it's entirely its own and unrelated character/plot-wise. I haven't read The Scarlet Pimpernel, but I hadn't read Persuasion either when I read For Darkness Shows the Stars, so I know my lack of knowledge of the original will have no effect on my love for this book. 

In a happy turn of events, when I was verifying the release date for this book on Amazon, I made a Discovery of Awesome. It turns out Diana Peterfreund has written a novella prequel to For Darkness Shows the Stars called Among the Nameless Stars (how am I just now learning of this?!) and it's FREE for the Kindle. *spastic flailing* If you don't have a Kindle, it's also available as a PDF on Diana's website, you can grab it here.

Four years before the events of FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS, the servant Kai left the North Estate, the only home he’d ever known, and Elliot North, the only girl he ever loved, in search of a better life. But the journey was not an easy one.

Featuring narrow escapes, thrilling boat races and at least one deadly volcanic wasteland.

Review: For Darkness Shows the Stars

FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS

Diana Peterfreund
Young Adult/Dystopian-ish
398 pages
Balzer + Bray
Available June 12th
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY(from Goodreads)

Generations ago, a genetic experiment gone wrong—the Reduction—decimated humanity, giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.

Elliot North has always known her place in this world. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family’s estate over love. Since then the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists is jumpstarting the wheel of progress, and Elliot’s estate is foundering, forcing her to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that includes renowned explorer Captain Malakai Wentforth—an almost unrecognizable Kai. And while Elliot wonders if this could be their second chance, Kai seems determined to show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she let him go.

But Elliot soon discovers her old friend carries a secret—one that could change their society . . . or bring it to its knees. And again, she’s faced with a choice: cling to what she’s been raised to believe, or cast her lot with the only boy she’s ever loved, even if she’s lost him forever.

MY THOUGHTS

Compelling and poignant, For Darkness Shows the Stars is an intimate portrayal of a relationship tested to its very extremes–a war between belief, knowledge, desire, prejudice and need waged as Elliot and Kai are brought face to face after a separation that changed them both irrevocably. Interspersed between present events are letters exchanged between Kai and Elliot’s younger selves; the tender moments shared with us they compare thoughts and question the belief system they’ve been taught providing us a beautiful familiarity with both protagonists before we’re returned to the time where they are practically strangers, the openness and honesty expressed in those brief missives gone in the blink of an eye. Elliot and Kai’s story is a painful one–quiet and at times cruel–the intensity of it stemming not from grand, sweeping conflict, but rather from fleeting moments filled with tension and overflowing with such possibility that our hearts swell to the point of aching as we wonder whether that stunning potential, hidden deeply behind caustic words and deliberate callousness, will ever be reached.

Elliot is a young woman of unmatched strength, making choices for the North Estate and its inhabitants no one her age should have to make, and sacrificing the only person she’s ever been able to be her true self with for the good of those under her care. When we meet her, we know she let Kai go to ensure those who work on the estate would have a buffer between them and her father’s fluctuating iron fist and cool selfish negligence, choosing to stay behind in body while her heart fled with Kai. She handles Kai’s repeated verbal jabs with a grace befitting someone far older and world-weary, taking his hurt and absorbing into herself as punishment for what he views as a betrayal all those years ago, and never once allowing him to see just how deep his words cut. While she never speaks outright in her defense, she also doesn’t cower from the force of his hatred, and we can’t help but read with our backs held ramrod straight, hoping to lend her some of our strength even though she doesn’t appear to need it.

Kai is an intriguingly complex character, someone it would be easy to dislike instantaneously when faced with his uncaring treatment of someone who loved him four years ago–and loves him still–were it not for the letters written to Elliot as they grew up together. Not fully understanding why being a Post made him less of a person, we can feel his confusion as he tried to sort out the ways of his world with Elliot when he was younger, and we long for a glimpse of that sweet boy in the dauntless Fleet Captain who takes advantage of every opportunity to hurt Elliot. Still, it’s clear to us his actions are those of a man in pain, lashing out when faced with the one person who threatens to render his impeccably-made armor useless, and the pounding of our hearts echoes loudly in our ears every time he finds himself alone with her as we wait for him to see past his anger and to the truth of his history with Elliot. The truth being he asked of her the only thing that was not hers to give: the lives of everyone on the North Estate who would have suffered or perished had she abandoned them to run with Kai.

Those readers who love their dystopian reads to have a thoroughly well-developed world haunting in its dark grittiness may find themselves a touch disappointed in this tale, the history of the Posts and the Reduced just brief enough for us to understand the terminology but lacking in copious amounts of detail. Instead, we’re given a thorough look at a tiny piece of this world, the development of the characters given extra attention and their personalities crafted so intricately that the world outside the two of them almost becomes irrelevant in the face of the stunningly tragic romance laid before us. Our hearts bleed, scream, and beg for mercy before we reach the final pages, and we can’t help but revel in a story so emotionally charged.

Rating: 4.5/5