5 BRIGHT STARS for Jacqueline Carey's Starless.
I absolutely loved this stand-alone book! Like, my with my whole heart. ( )

Love this book! The world is really interesting. Gods that walk the earth and all kinds of cultures and races with different types of communication make it an interesting place. I love the characters and Khai in particular. I love the fact that no one is perfect, that everybody is accepted for who they are.

The storyline is a classic quest, not really special, but it is all in the telling of the tale. And Jaqueline Carey can tell a tale!

Must read! ( )

Oh, the turns of her phrases

“I am Khai, and remain myself, whatever that means.”

I am a longtime fan of Jacqueline Carey. She hooked me withKushiel’s Dart, as many of you would know from other reviews. I have read a great deal of her work…Kushiel’s Legacy—both trilogies, Moirin’s Trilogy, Agent of Hel Trilogy, her ode to the bard: Miranda and Caliban, and several of her short stories. My favorite, by far, remains Phèdre’s Trilogy. And while Starless doesn’t quite live up the grandeur of the Kushiel series, it is quite the work of storytelling.

I’ve read reviews that bash Ms. Carey for her lyrical prose, but that is what I love so much about her writing. She’s departed from that voice in some of her work (e.g. Agent of Hel), and while I enjoyed those reads, they didn’t pull at me the way her prose does in the world of Terre D’Ange or in her newest single-volume epic fantasy.

The imagery that begins this novel and presses through tothe end gripped me and just pulled me along. She makes the heat of the desertmagical in these lines, and though there is some magic within these pages, thetrue magic is in how she spins the words.

“It was midmorning in high spring, and the heat would have been rising like an oven, only a slight breeze swirling in the basin. I can imagine it well. Atop the arched bridge, Brother Saan opened his hand and let fall a single hawk feather.”

For me, 3 is a good review, 4 is a great review, and 5 is near flawless. Starless is pushing into the 4 and 5 range, but as a single volume, it leaves me wanting to explore more of the magical world. Also, I wasn’t thrilled with one of the devices used in the climactic scenes…it simply tripped a trigger point. That is a personal preference, and an opinion that many, many others do not share. I’ll not reveal it here so to not spoil the reader’s journey through the realm of Zarkhoum and beyond.
Keep turning that page…you’re guaranteed to find some magic!

This contains most of my review, but you can check out more on my goodreads author page blog or my book review website...

Best,
Susan at TrulyNovelReviews dot com ( )

Absolutely wonderful. It has everything an adventure book should have - knife fights, pirates, lush palaces, zombies, true love…! It’s so inclusive and wholesome. ( )

Fall 2018:

This book was SO GOOD. I was so pleased with the display of the gender/identity topic, how deeply it was covered and how supportively. I always love Carey's sweeping vocabulary, and the depth of her worlds, their religions, politics, involvements. Everyone should read it, and I'm sad I waited as long as I did.

(It's absolutely why I returned to another of her books I hadn't read right after my every-other classic read, and will have another to review shortly for her, again.) ( )