PLEASE NOTE: I recieved a free ARC copy of Black Sun in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in the following post are my honest opinions.
Hello, dear friends, and welcome back to my cozy, little corner of the internet! I hope you all are well, happy, and safe, and if not, I hope brighter days come your way soon!
Tody I have quite a treat for y’all—today, I want to welcome you to my stop on the Hear Our Voices Black Sun Book Tour! I have SUCH a packed post for you today, featuring not only a review, but also lots of extra, fun goodies! But first, I want to thank Hear Our Voices and the publisher of Black Sun for putting this tour together and providing me with a physical ARC copy of Black Sun!
So without any further ado, let’s get to the good stuff, friends!
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book info
Title: Black Sun
Author: Rebecca Roanhorse
Release Date: October 13, 2020
Format: Physical ARC Copy provided by Saga Press and ALC Audiobook provided by Libro.fm
Narrator(s): Cara Gee, Nicole Lewis, Kaipo Schwab, Shaun Taylor-Corbett
Run Time: 12 hours, 46 minutes
Source: Publisher (Saga Press)
Trigger Warnings: Death, graphic violence and gore, off-page suicide and discussion of suicide, murder, graphic mass murder (NOTE: If you believe I have failed to include any necessary trigger warnings, please inform me and I will add them)
Goodreads Summary: From the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Resistance Reborn comes the first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic.
A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun
In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.
Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.
Crafted with unforgettable characters, Rebecca Roanhorse has created an epic adventure exploring the decadence of power amidst the weight of history and the struggle of individuals swimming against the confines of society and their broken pasts in the most original series debut of the decade.
Purchase: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository | Kobo | Google
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aesthetic edit
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review
You ever finish a book and just heave a GIANT sight because wow, what a great ride that was?
Yeah. That was me with Black Sun, friends. Sometimes a book just leaves you speechless.
So, Black Sun was one of my most anticipated books of 2020 and I’m happy that I can honestly say I enjoyed every moment of my reading experience! The story follows four main characters whose destinies put them on a bloody collision course that will change the entire world they live in and what a gripping story it is!
But enough of my incoherent rambling, let’s get on to the specifics of what I really loved about Black Sun…
intrigue, anyone?
Okay, so first things first, let me set your expectations straight. Black Sun isn’t exactly an action packed, cover-to-cover thrill ride kinda read. It’s far slower, turning its focus to political intrigue and the main characters involved. Think, like, the pace of Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows. But it works? It works really well?
I typically go for more medium paced books, but even I couldn’t tear myself away from Black Sun! I think the thing is that, while Roanhorse slowed the pace of Black Sun, she also never once let the actual plot falter. Every scene aches with intention, driving the reader slowly but steadily towards the final scenes of the book.
clever characterization
The other thing Roanhorse placed the focus of Black Sun on was the characters. We follow four central characters in the novel:
- Xiala, who is a ship captain with a magical secret tasked with carrying some precious cargo to the holy city of Tova
- Serapio, who is the “precious cargo” in question and who has a dark destiny he seeks to fulfill
- Naranpa, who is the Sun Priest of Tova and who is embroiled in the politics of the priesthood
- Okua, the warrior son of one of the Tovan clans’ matrons who returns to Tova seeking answers to a sinister mystery
Throughout Black Sun, we really dig into and explore the motivations of these characters and watch as they’re woven together into a shared fate. Roanhorse takes her time with this, masterfully building and building our knowledge of the main characters.
“They were not good people, Powageh.”
His only remaining tutor chuckled. “No, they were not. Are any of us? Am I? Are you?”
… “Can a bad person become a good person by performing a good deed?” he asked.
— Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
I will admit, I quickly became invested in our main quartet, despite each of them having many a moment that, well, that didn’t exactly shine a light on their best side. Roanhorse chose to showcase each character not as purely “good” or “bad,” but rather as an inherent mixture of both, really displaying and playing on the duality of human nature.
what a wonderful world!
There was magic in the world, pure and simple, things she didn’t understand. Best get used to it.
— Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
And let’s not forget to mention the amazing world of Black Sun! The world was truly so fascinating—and I definitely want to see and understand more of it! Roanhorse did a great job of giving readers nuggets of information about the world that helped to illustrate how expansive it truly was without overwhelming the reader with infodumps. She also managed to make a few select main settings truly feel like part of a much broader world in a way that I personally think truly takes talent, because it mirrors kind of our own view of where we are in the real world and our place in it. The mixture of cultures—of places, of people, of sights and sounds and so much more—made the world feel so real and so vivid in a way I don’t frequently experience in fantasy novels!
in conclusion!
Black Sun is a phenomenal fantasy and I encourage you to snag a copy at a bookstore or library if you can! As a final note, I can’t tell you how much the own voices Indigenous American representation in Black Sun meant to me as a reader who is part Indigenous American. I’ve never before seen that part of my heritage truly represented in fantasy novels, so having the opportunity to experience Black Sun was truly something special. So, with that being said, I’m going to wrap this review up. Until next time, dear friends…
rating:
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quiz
Take my original character quiz for Black Sun here
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look book
xiala
naranpa
serapio
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So, that’s all for today, dear friends. I hope you enjoyed and had some fun. Now, I’ve got a good book and some tea to enjoy, so if you’ll excuse me. Until next time, dear friends…
Hardcover Haven 
I have this book on Libro as well and am quite excited to read seeing all the talk about it! I’m also quite intrigued seeing you say that it’s slow-paced and yet captivating. I’m not one for slow books so we’ll have to see how this goes.
Loved reading your review, and seeing the look book!
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I grabbed the ALC from libro, I just need a bit more downtime in my life! Such a great review and I absolutely cannot wait to start this!
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