A Legend of Starfire

The Legend of Starfire
Sequel to A Sliver of Stardust

Marissa Burt
Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2016

From the dust jacket: “All night long my nets I throw/ to the stars in the twinkling foam, / Then up from the waves comes the light I know/ to take me where I want to go.
“A few months ago, the land of Nod was just a name in a nursery rhyme to Wren. But when she discovered the secret magic of stardust, she learned that Nod was real, too. More than a century ago, the evil Magician Boggen was exiled to Nod with his followers. At first their pristine new home, filled with stardust, seemed like paradise. But they were too greedy with their experiments, and now what little stardust remains on Nod is corrupted, slowly poisoning their world.
“Boggen himself tried to escape by returning to Earth. Wren managed to stop him—but now the gateway between the two worlds is damaged, and the corruption of Nod’s stardust is spreading. To save her home Wren will travel farther than even she could have dreamed: to the heart of Nod itself, where she must defeat Boggen once and for all.”

I enjoyed this book more than the first one. It is way more creative and, at least to my reading experience, more original (not so Harry Potterish). As with all books of this type, Wren has to deal with self-doubt and fear and learn to overcome it if she is to save the world. The world the author created on Nod is a mixture of dystopian nightmare and Victorian steampunk – it’s not a bad world to live in, if it weren’t for the cruel overlord, Boggen.

There is much talk of the experiments Boggen does on humans but none of it is ever described; there are hints of violence to 13-year-old Jack – just a mentioning of bruises – but nothing overt or gratuitous. There are several scenes where humans meet with violent deaths but none of it is graphic or gory.

This series of 2 books was an enjoyable read – not as riveting as some I’ve read, but good enough to feel like I didn’t waste my time.

Rating 3-1/2 paws out of 5 because the book was nice to read but not a real page turner.

Reviewer:

PeggySue