I recieved an ARC e-book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 3 stars
I haven’t read any of Emily R. King’s books before, although I do have her Hundredth Queen series on my “want to read” list because a) the covers are beautiful and b) the premise seems right up my alley! So when I saw King had a series up on NetGalley, I didn’t think twice about requesting a copy.
“Before the Broken Star” caught my interest for one reason: the main female protagonist has a clock heart. That right there screams “emotional mess” to me, and I’m always here for female MCs who don’t know how or can’t handle their emotions for one reason or another. A clock heart is a pretty good reason to struggle with life.
After the brutal murder of her family, Everley Donovan has lived with her uncle in his clock shop as an apprentice. All the while, however, she’s been preparing to avenge her family by going after the man responsible: Killian Markham. He killed her parents, butchered her siblings, and stabbed her through the chest with his sword, thus forcing her uncle to construct a clock heart so that Everley could live. She’s always felt like she’s been living on borrowed time because a clock heart, like most self-sufficent mechanisms, don’t last forever.
I realized not very far into the book that it actually was pretty far from my normal reads. I’m really not a fan of pirates or treasure-seeking stories. If the characters or storyline revolve around the sea and/or sailing for a portion of the book, I can read through that, but BTBS took place almost entirely at sea and with pirate-types, and the main conflict was a search for lost treasure. I was really not interested in any of it. The sailing. The navigational issues. The creepy island. I was never excited about exploring anything. I have to say, I did love the pixies and gnomes and all the rest of the little woodland creatures that Everley and the others came across once they stepped into Markham’s world. It was definitely a very fairytale-esque world, which I found cute and endearing. But otherwise, I was indifferent.
There were quite a few issues I had with this story. First, all of the characters were unlikeable. ALL OF THEM. Harlow, Markham, Vevina, Tavis, and even the Cat and the Fox, who were supposed to be lighthearted and sort of like comedic relief, but most of the time I found them boring or at worst annoying. I absolutely despised Harlow to the point where she began to ruin the story for me. What was the point of her existence except as someone who threw random insults at literally every living person except Markham? She seemed like a fairly useless character who basically sold out all the other women for Markham because she’s “in love” with him..?? I don’t feel sympathy for her at all, I don’t think she ‘s a good person, and I hoped at several different points that she would die. She’s not even a villain; she’s just a useless character and beyond annoying.
Markham, of course, is despicable, but this does make a bit more sense since he is the true villain, after all. He’s a prince and yet also a rude, detestable, insufferable, bullying asshole who is so selfish it’s almost impossible to reconcile. It did interest me that the prince in this story is not the good guy. Markham is so far from being the good guy. In most stories, the prince is the one tasked with saving the princess and sometimes the world, but here Marhkam is responsible for killing one and destroying the other. He’s not redeemable and just as loathesome as Harlow. I really appreciated the plot twist when he finally makes it to Princess Amadara.
Towards the end of this novel, I actually really wanted Everley to fall to the dark side. I want her to give in to her darker desires and kind of say “fuck it” to everybody and do all kinds of bad shit. She’s lost literally everything [except her uncle], and no one has ever given her any kind of leniency, so I think she should toss aside everyone else’s concerns and do what she came to do – kill Markham (and hopefully Harlow). It’s boring having the female MC always be the “righteous” or “path of the light” character. If she dipped into the morally gray area, I would like Everley a lot more.
The Cat and the Fox, as I said, were annoying, as was Vevina, who seemed to be a caricature of the “sassy brothel madam who takes charge in order to make as much money as possible” role. Like I haven’t seen that a dozen times before. Jamison was okay, but the romance with him wasn’t particularly steamy or anything. Quinn was also a decent character, although she really didn’t do all that much except act as a weakness for Everley.
All in all, I thought the story was okay in places but in general was a bit boring, storyline-wise, and a bit annoying, character-wise. The second novel in the series, “Into the Hourglass,” was free to read on NetGalley, so I grabbed the book at the same time I grabbed BTBS. I’m going to read and review it as well, but if nothing improves, I won’t be reading the final novel. There are plenty of captivating books out there; I don’t want to waste much time on those stories that do nothing for me.
Rating: 3 stars
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