Obsidian and Stars

Written by Julie Eshbaugh

Narrated by Suzanne Elise Freeman

In the riveting sequel to Ivory and Bone—the YA fantasy novel that New York Times bestselling author Amie Kaufman described as having a “richly crafted world of life-and-death stakes”—the story shifts to Mya’s viewpoint as vengeful adversaries force her to flee the life she once knew.

After surviving the battle that erupted after Lo and the Bosha clan attacked, now Mya is looking ahead to her future with Kol. All the things that once felt so uncertain to her are finally falling into place. But the same night as Kol and Mya’s betrothal announcement, Mya’s brother Chev reveals his plan to marry their youngest sister, Lees, to his friend Morsk. The only way to avoid this terrible turn of events, Morsk informs Mya when he corners her later, is for Mya to take Lees’ place and marry him herself.

Rejecting Morsk’s offer, and in an effort to protect her sister, Mya whisks Lees away to a secret island until things back home blow over. Mya soon realizes she’s been followed, however. Even worse, lurking deep in the recesses of this dangerous place are rivals from Mya’s past whose thirst for revenge exceeds all reason.

With the lives of her loved ones resting on her shoulders, Mya must make a move before the enemies of her past become the undoing of her future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jun 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9780062683366

Julie Eshbaugh

Julie Eshbaugh is a YA writer and former filmmaker. She made two short films and then spent several years producing an online video series for teens, which received several honors from the Webby Awards. You can learn more about Julie’s writing escapades (with the online group Publishing Crawl) by visiting www.julieeshbaugh.com.

Reviews for Obsidian and Stars

[thegenreminx · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Obsidian and Stars is the second book in the Ivory and Bone series. I did enjoy the first book, Ivory and Bone, but this book was much more enjoyable to me. The way the story is written is beautiful and detailed. The pacing is of a slower nature but I was okay with that because this story followed around a prehistoric clan and it just felt natural to me. From the start, I was captivated and loved that the story was written from Mya’s point of view. Having met Kol in the first story, I was glad to read things from Mya’s side. The one-sided point of view did not bother me this time around. Mya had come back to make her intentions for marriage known to Kol and his tribe. Before this could even take place, tragedy struck and everything changed for both clans. In addition to this event, it was made known that Mya’s youngest sister, Lees, was to be wed to Morsk.Morsk has been considered for husband to both Mya and her sisters at one point and Lees did not want to marry Morsk at all. Morsk felt the same way and his intention was that Mya should break her betrothal with Kol and marry him instead. Thank you so freaking much that this character did not hold this information back in some lame attempt to keep Kol from knowing. I appreciated that so much from this young adult character you have no idea. After stopping Lees and her beloved, Roon, from making a hasty elopement it was decided that Mya and Lees would run away in order to make it known that they did not accept the decision to wed Lees to Morsk. Mya and Lees left to go to a place that was a far journey from where the Manu clan was currently at. The journey was hard and once they arrived at their destination it quickly became apparent that there were more dangers than they had anticipated. The idea was that Mya and Lees would flee to the secret island to show their defiance and when their brother was ready to actually discuss Lees future he would know where they were because Kol would tell him. Sounds about right for a bunch of teenagers who are reacted emotionally. Although the idea was simple enough what they did not expect was that they would be death and disaster at every turn. Once Mya and the others that joined her were at the island they realized that they were not as alone as they once had thought. They had been followed to this remote location by several people who were out for revenge and this secluded island was the perfect place where no one would ever know what really happened.Wow, is all that I can say about Obsidian and Stars! I found the relationship between Kol and Mya to be pure enjoyment. I loved everything about them!! In addition to a sweet romance there were plot twists that just shocked me! Some of them even made me tear up, which was not cool because I was sitting in a waiting room at that point, lol. Mya’s character was so tough but she was also very vulnerable. I honestly thought that this series was a duology but I was excited to learn that there is more to come in this series and I absolutely can’t wait!! 

[jessika.c · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

We should just rename this "how many times can we pretend to try to kill off Kol before Mya finally says the L word?" I mean it was thrilling in the same way as a thriller movie is where you know that either everyone is going to die leaving the two characters that end up being lovers as the sole survivors or only those characters you don't really care about get killed off giving everyone a convenient happily ever after. After the second attempt on his life, I was just bored.It's been about a year since the events of Ivory and Bone. Mya is off to become betrothed to Kol along with her sister Seeri who also has her heart set on becoming betrothed to Pek. A sad event takes place immediately upon their arrival that put a damper on the happy occasion. Once the official arrangements of betrothals are set Mala makes an offhanded comment about possibly setting Lees aside for her youngest son when Chev breaks the news that he's unwilling to allow Seeri and Pek's future child to become the next high chief so it's up to Lees to produce the heir with his friend Morsk. Mya can't let Lees run away with Rune so she takes his directions towards an island and sets off to hide her sister away until Chev can come up with a compromise. On the uninhabited island, the sisters find a girl named Noni who has just lost her mother after running away from an abusive father. Together they promise to take care of each other and that's going to come in handy when Mya's enemies chase after them in their vulnerable state.Honestly, it wasn't that bad but I keep forgetting this is more of a romance novel. There are many times where Mya longs to be with Kol, she wants to touch Kol, she wants him to press his lips on hers, she looks after Kol to make sure he's okay, she rescues Kol...Yep all about Kol. It's cute but it doesn't leave the best impression in my opinion. Or maybe it does when you're into that kind of thing. Then there's the whole situation about who is willing to let go of their clan. If I do recall in Ivory and Bone, Kol pressed his dad about how Pek was much better suited to be the clan leader but I guess he forgot about that conversation in this book. Brownie points for remembering Mya's characterization though, she was awful the first book and she didn't change. She was however much more sympathetic as well as caring when it mattered the most. My only question remains is why Kol likes her so much. He was hella cute with his declarations of love but Mya...not so much.The villains are still the same, the conflicts are basically the same but personally, I would have liked to have read this book as a standalone or something and pretend the first one didn't exist. Or the author should've merged the book ideas into one and have both points of view. That being said I will admit that I liked this one more than the first.