The following review was posted on SomethingOfTheBook.com on 5/29/2020.

I understand why publishers use big name books in hooks and blurbs for upcoming releases. It lures you in with promises that this novel is for you because you liked this Very Popular Book™. But I wonder if they think about what happens after someone buys a book on a false premise. I can tell you what happens though: bad reviews for books that are very good, but nothing like the big name book they tried to make you think it was like.

It’s about expectations. I once read a book that was promised to be like Labyrinth. Except it wasn’t at all and my expectations, that were specifically influenced by that comparison, led me to strongly dislike the book. Not because it was a bad story. But because I kept waiting for anything remotely like Jareth the Goblin King in his tight tight pants to show up. And I never got it. And while I read this book back before I wrote book reviews, if I had been writing them at the time, it would have been a 3 page essay on how mad I was there were no tight pants. I can’t speak for everyone, but reviews do influence my book buying habits and bad reviews certainly don’t make me want to buy a book.

So what does this all have to do with Forged in Fire and Stars? Well, the hooks for this story liken it to the Grishaverse, An Ember in the Ashes, and Game of the Thrones…except it’s not like those at all. A quick glance at some of the reviews for FiFaS show that many people were let down because they were expecting certain things. And because of these expectations, I think people aren’t giving Forged in Fire and Stars enough credit.

Forged in Fire and Stars is a fantastic start to an epic YA fantasy series that, if it must be likened to another literary work, made me think of old school YA series like the Tortall books by Tamora Pierce. While some may find the story a bit slow, those who enjoy deep world building and character driven plots will find the beginning to a new favorite series with this one.

And let’s start with the pacing first, because I know a lot of people might find issue with it. This story is definitely setting up for a bigger arc and world, but the journey we go on is not boring in the slightest. Robertson builds up the world as we go on the journey with Ara and there are many layers to everything going on. I particularly enjoyed the way gods and goddesses tied into the mysticism of the world.

The characters, especially Ara, are all well built and believable. Ara and the lost royals are in their midteens and they are realistically not perfect and sometimes very confused with their role in the world. Some reviews I saw claimed this book “read young” and um, it’s a “YOUNG adult” book. However, don’t think that the book might not be for you. While some of the romantic side plot grated on my bitter old lady nerves, I fully enjoyed this story of teens journeying to claim their heritage. Oh, and did I mention that the main character is a female with bad ass black smith skills?

Forged in Fire and Stars is different from a lot of young adult novels that are on the market these days. It feels more subtle, but no less engaging. I think likening it to other big name books does a disservice to what is a wonderful story on it’s own, but I hope that this book will find it’s readers. I, for one, am very excited for the next book in the series.

What instantly drew me into this book was the idea of the Loresmith: a blacksmith blessed by the gods who defends kings and queens through the ages. The story starts out with high stakes: the kingdom's Loresmith killed during a battle to overthrow the regency, and everyone thinks that the Loresmith becomes extinct. But the Loresmith had a daughter no one knew about. In short, the story follows Ara as she becomes involved with the lost prince and princess to restore their kingdom.

The most unique thing about this book is the writing. It feels similar to J. R. R. Tolkien's writing; it has that similar fanciful feel like some old bard is telling the story over a campfire. Because of this, I struggled to see into the characters' hearts and minds and connect to them. I was constantly reminded that this is simply a story being told. I couldn't escape into the world like I normally do when I read fantasy.

Andrea Robertson sets up a nice series with this one, so a lot of the book is spent on world-building while the characters continually travel. The plot meanders a lot, and some things just don't make sense at first. But I still felt mildly interested in the plot and characters, so it wasn't hard to finish. In sum, this book simply wasn't remarkable enough for me to fully engage with it. But I may pick up the sequel.

Writing Aesthetic/Style: 3
Plot/Movement: 3
Character Development: 3
Overall: 3

Thank you Philomel Books and NetGalley for the review copy!

Ara is the daughter of the last Loresmith. Her father was supposed to teach her the ways of the Loresmith, but unfortunately, he passed away before he was able to do so. When a princess and a scholar arrive at her village, she joins them on a journey to take back the Kingdom. Along the way, she meets a thief and his fox, and together they all set out to discover the ways of the Loresmith.

I don't know why this is advertised as action-packed, because absolutely nothing happened this entire book. This book is SLOW. The concept was intriguing, but I was just bored throughout most of this. Ara is an interesting character, but I didn't really care what happened to her or the twins. The only character I was truly invested in was Teth and his fox companion.

It was very obvious that this was setting up for a series, which was a bit annoying.

Actual Rating: 3.5 stars

If you like classic epic fantasy and are looking for a YA take, this one is worth checking out! It has great world-building and cool mythology, but the pacing drags in parts, some plot twists are pretty predictable, and the characters were fine, but could have used more nuance. Forged in Fire and Stars has been compared to An Ember in the Ashes and Game of Thrones. And....I'm not sure those are great comparisons, other than the epic scope and political elements to be found here.

The Loresmith is tasked by the gods with protecting the people and creating magical weapons, but must never lift a weapon themself except in defense. When an evil empire overruns the kingdom, the Loresmith sacrifices himself to save his secret daughter and heir. Many years later, fate finds Ara and she begins a journey to reclaim her heritage and defeat the evil empire. The premise is a great one and for me, the best part of this book was the mythology and world-building. Every time we learned more about the mythology of the world or had appearances from the gods I was riveted. That part read like classic high fantasy and was well developed.

The characters were fine, but a little bland. Our heroine can do no wrong and I didn't see strong arcs of character development. I appreciated the diversity here though. We get racial and cultural diversity in our little gang that get together along the way, and there is also the possibility of a sapphic relationship developing between the side characters. One character is from a people group that is clearly a stand-in for the Romany, including the way that people have created racist names for them and oppress them.

There are plot twists that I definitely saw coming a long way off, and the pacing of was a bit slower than usual for a YA fantasy. Which I probably wouldn't have minded if the book was longer and did more character development. That said, I think many readers will still quite enjoy this. It feels like a throwback in some ways and I mostly enjoyed my time with it. I received an advance copy of this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

CW include racism, murder, killing of children, blood magic, depictions of gore, loss of a loved one and more.

Um… Well, what I thought would be amazingly awesome (especially with a comp title like An Ember in the Ashes) fell completely flat and absolutely did not work for me. I had it in my mind I would DNF this book early on, but I felt like I wasn’t giving it enough of a chance. Man, do I regret that decision. When I receive early copies from publishers, I feel a bit obligated to give push through the book in order to give it a proper review. In this case, I should have just stopped but every time I picked the book up, I was getting further and further along and eventually found myself at the end… With a great amount of reluctance and very little skimming.

Don’t get me wrong though. The premise sounds absolutely wonderful and love the idea. But executive was so poor. I liked the world-building, the legends, myths, and stories of the gods. But I absolutely couldn’t care less about any of the characters. Ara really had nothing going for her outside of being the Loresmith, while Nimhea and Eamon seemed utterly underdeveloped. You just throw these characters together, yet I felt like no true friendship or bond was formed between them, outside of Nimhea and Eamon as brother and sister. And even at times, that appeared strained. I felt like I was d r a g g i n g, sloshing through this hot mess just to get to the end and say that I read it. Not to mention that the characters are traveling 99% of the time in this book and it was boring. This book starts right in the action but the thing is, I didn’t want all the action up front. Maybe that’s where my lack of connection to the characters started. I feel like I didn’t know them enough to care about them or their journey. The developing romance between the main character, Ara, and a character she meets on her journey… Again, I couldn’t care less. So dull.

It was very much a chore to pick up this book. I forced myself not to skim it, in case I didn’t miss something important. Wrong on me. I should have just went directly to the end. And the utter betrayal from one of the characters? Excuse me, where in the WORLD did that even come into play and why? It makes absolutely no sense.

We do get a few chapters where that don’t follow Ara but I struggled to see how they fit into the story besides it being from the eyes of the enemy. I didn’t feel like there was a connection between those chapters and what was happening with Ara. I’m sure my dislike of the book is causing me to miss any sort of thread to connect these stories but with everything being a struggle in this book, I don’t really care.

Incredible cover. Lovely comp titles. But an absolute miss with me. It makes me wonder if I should go back and read this author’s previous works.

The minute I read that this book was about blacksmiths who forged legendary weapons to arm warriors and protect kingdoms, I was hooked! That is totally right up my ally, and those are the parts that I liked besides the characters Fox and Teth (whom I loved!). The beginning was fabulous, and I couldn't wait to see where the story would go. Unfortunately, it seemed to sizzle out and loose some of the appeal and then I struggled to get it finished. Hopefully, the next book will take off and add more of the elements that I loved in the first one.

With that being said, I would buy this for my middle school library, and I recommend it to fantasy readers who enjoy stories where the character takes a journey to find themselves!

In a time where shows like Game of Thrones and The Witcher are at the height of popularity, Forged in Fire and Stars has all the ingredients to appeal to all readers. It is the tale of an exiled princess, a divided kingdom, and a legendary blacksmith known as the Loresmith. Tasked with forging the weapons of the Gods, the Loresmith served alongside the Kings and Queens to protect the kingdom. Ara has always known about these revered blacksmiths. In fact, she was set to inherit the title from her father until the monarchies downfall and his death many years earlier. Going about her life Ara is resigned to be simply a blacksmith until the lost Princess Nimhea and Prince Eamon find her and convince her to join their mission to retake their throne and for Ara to claim her rightful place as the Loresmith. There is only one small problem. To claim her birthright, she must petition the Gods themselves. What follows is a whirlwind, dangerous adventure where Ara discovers the truth about her family’s history while forging a new and better future for her Kingdom and herself.

Forged in Fire and Stars has a simple to follow narrative with well defined and structured plot points throughout. The single character, third person narrative allows for straightforward communication of the plot to the reader and the insight given into the main character, Ara, and her emotions and motivations are well conveyed. Andrea Robertson has set out to take her readers on a journey and while the characters themselves are interesting, the twists that occurred throughout the plot lacked finesse and it felt like I was simply being told the story instead of being able to immerse myself in this new world.

The world and political structure Robertson has created is complex and there are many invested parties involved in this story: the dethroned royal family of which Nimhea and Eamon belong, the Vokkans who exiled the royal siblings, the Gods and then everyone else.

The pace of the book was overwhelmingly deliberate and has a large amount of exposition to develop the world and the characters’ ways of life. The overall feel of this book is that of a prequel and that this book has been used to set up the rest of the series. This made the book feel underwhelming and in my opinion, the book would have been more enjoyable if there was equal focus given to developing the plot within this book and creating a succinct narrative as there was given to the explanatory world building.

The subtlety of the presence of a magic system in this book was unique and refreshing and really separates it from other YA reads in its category. The mythology system was well constructed and imaginative and I loved how unique the Loresmith legend is. What really shines in this story is Ara. She is such a unique heroine it is hard not to fall in love with her. In some situations she is wise beyond her years, in others she is naive and yet the fate of the Kingdom rests on her shoulders. She is the perfect vessel to guide the reader through the perils on this adventure.

Forged in Fire and Stars has an overall interesting concept that has great potential. I was really looking forward to learning more about this exciting world based off the synopsis and the comparison to Six of Crows and An Ember in the Ashes series. This created some very big shoes for this book to fill and unfortunately for me the execution was lacklustre. I would be very interested to see where this series goes next as there is just so much potential!

I want to start out by saying that I lost the notepaper with all of my notes on it, so we're winging this review! (which, let's be honest, my winged review are interesting, to say the least!)

Thank you to Penguin Teen for inviting me to read this eARC on Net Galley!
I love following stories about bards and knight and blacksmiths, because we really don't have enough of these stories nowadays1 I think the knight tale and anything relating to it was overdone years ago, but I'm excited to see a revamping of them!

Alright, so, Ara is the daughter of the Loresmith, but because the "position" is god-given, she must either learn the trade from the previous Loresmith (which is impossible because her father is dead) or she must prove her worthiness by the gods.

Ara is living a normal life in a small village when twins Princess Nimhea and Prince Eamon, the long-lost children of the late king, find her and entreat her to journey with her and earn her rightful position. On the way, she catches a fox stealing from her travel companions, and follows the fox to a set of ruins and instead meets Teth, a young thief. Together, the four of them basically venture off on a quest to get Ara her Loresmith title and unseat the tyrant and place Nimhea in his stead, as is her birthright.

It's a super cool premise, and I loved the beginning of the book, but it slowed down real quick, and I honestly got rather bored. I was really disappointed, because this book is obviously setting up for the rest of the series. The world itself isn't very magical (which I actually preferred) rather the people themselves, and I loved the idea and the characters, and the writing was quite good, which is why I'm rating it 4 stars. I really hope book 2 is faster paced! I wonder if it'll be a good audiobook, because I know it often helps me with slower paced novels.

The story is about Ara, the daughter of the Loresmith, that grew up with her grandmother far away from the Kingdom. Her father was killed to protect his magic and the heirs to the throne. So she lives a normal life until one day the long-lost heirs to the throne, Prince Eamon and Princess Nimhea, come to her small village and ask her to take her father place by their side. The problem is that being a Loresmith has to be earn. So together they start a journey to prove her worth to the gods. During her journey she meets Teth, a mysterious thief that joins her and the rest of the group on their quest.

This is quite a captivating story. From the start we are introduced to a new world and in the first chapters we discover, step by step, what happened and what needs to happen in order to put Princess Nimhea on the throne. It takes a while, but as soon as the journey starts we are brought into an interesting adventure with some exciting plot twist.

The book is slow, but that allows the reader to fully understand what’s going on and predict where the story is going. The worldbuilding is really well done and the story is easy to follow.

It’s a good first book in a series, but I hope the style will be a little bit more fast-paced in the sequel and with even major plot twists.

Anyway, I recommend it to fan of Sabaa Tahir and Tomi Adeyemi. If you are looking for a new interesting fantasy world this is the book for you.