Star Father
Star Father (Star Mother #2)
By: Charlie N. Holmberg
[On my list for Most Anticipated Books of 2022]
“Love is the one eternal thing all beings are capable of creating. It has more potential than anything else— literature, stonework, folklore. Mortals, more than any, know it intimately. It lingers in the universe long after their bodies have moved on.”
[You can check out my review from Star Mother where I discuss some of the God vs god comparisons. For this review we will just accept Holmberg’s created world of gods, godlings, goddesses, and how celestial beings interact with mortals.]
Love is the driving force of this book.
With Star Mother we felt the love of a mother for her daughter as well as a romantic love.
With Star Father the love is largely romantic with a bit of the depth of friendship thrown in.
Personally I would have been fine with Star Mother being a standalone novel as Holmberg originally intended it. But she wanted Saiyon, the sun god, to have his own happy ending. After the first book, I didn’t really care for that outcome, but here we are.
This book takes place years after Star Mother— Ceris has lived out her days and resides in the sky with her lover and her daughter.
But with the loss of Twilight, the war between the moon and the sun rages on.
Aija (which took me several pages before I figured out the narrator was female) comes across a man near the river on her farm.
She brings him home to take care of him.
They fall in love immediately, obviously.
(Side note here: Aija is in her thirties and has already been married and widowed so this wasn’t a ‘fairytale’ story even though their passion was basically immediate.)
But he is the sun god himself, void of his full power/nature. She nurses him back to health and learns that because he is bound to his duty as the sun god, they cannot be together. His power and heat burns her and would kill her.
“Every time I have loved, I have lost,” he says.
But celestial law is no match for Aija’s love for him!
She will go the distance!
And with the help of three loyal and true friends, she does. Across the land, sea, and stars to find a way to become immortal.
She is willing to give up anything, even her ability to create art, to be with the one she loves.
“My skin and mind craved Sunlight. Even before the consuming dark, I’d always craved Sunlight. It was, perhaps, the most pious thing about me.”
It’s odd to me to think about someone giving up their mortality to become immortal. Usually it’s an immortal becoming mortal for love. Which, personally, seems better… depending what you believe about the after life. Who wants to live forever in the broken universe? It sounds exhausting.
What I liked most about this book was that it was a quest. Every time you think she has figured out a way to become immortal, something goes wrong. Though the romance aspect of it didn’t do much for me, I did like how she recognized the love of her friends to risk what they did to help her be with her love.
As with the first book, I also liked the art aspect. Ceris made tapestries. Aija is more versatile- drawing, painting, sculpting. I really loved her rendering of the Moon. That even though Aija was captive and tormented in darkness she was able to see the hurt the Moon experienced and shine light on her scars in a new way.
What I didn’t like was Saiyon. I didn’t get a great impression of him in the first book and all of a sudden I’m supposed to be enamored with him? Also Aija is willing to take some stupid risks for her obsessive love that puts her loved ones in danger. It’s hard to root for love that seems selfish rather than selfless. I suppose there are aspects of her love that appear sacrificial but in the context of a magical and mythological world, the fantasy of it isn’t engaging to me. It’s not a real situation.
The Star Mother begins with Ceris believing she is sacrificing her life so that two other people can be together. In the end she finds love, but in contrast Aija is sacrificing other people’s safety so that she can get the love she wants. To me one is more honorable than the other.
If you liked the first book, then you will like this one.
If you’re not a fan of celestial romance, I don’t think you’ll be able to get into this one.
Her writing is good, but I definitely don’t think I could read book after book in this genre. I read Star Mother and Star Father back to back and now I’m ready to read something different.
Lastly, I discovered that Charlie Holmberg has a podcast with another author, Caitlyn McFarland, called ‘Your Mom Writes Books’ (awesome title) where they discuss all things books/writing. I listened to one episode and it was pretty entertaining and informative if you are interested in becoming an author. You can check it out HERE.
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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