This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by ScifiGirl1986. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Paranormal Romance category.
The summary:
To celebrate the rise of their new queen, three goddesses of the moon created three stars, one of fire, one of ice, one of water. But then they fell from the sky, putting the fate of all worlds in danger. And now three women and three men join forces to pick up the pieces…
Sasha Riggs is a reclusive artist, haunted by dreams and nightmares that she turns into extraordinary paintings. Her visions lead her to the Greek island of Corfu, where five others have been lured to seek the fire star. Sasha recognizes them, because she has drawn them: a magician, an archaeologist, a wanderer, a fighter, a loner. All on a quest. All with secrets.
Sasha is the one who holds them together—the seer. And in the magician, Bran Killian, she sees a man of immense power and compassion. As Sasha struggles with her rare ability, Bran is there to support her, challenge her, and believe in her.
But Sasha and Bran are just two of the six. And they all must all work together as a team to find the fire star in a cradle of land beneath the sea. Over their every attempt at trust, unity, and love, a dark threat looms. And it seeks to corrupt everything that stands in its way of possessing the stars…
Here is ScifiGirl1986's review:
Nora Roberts has been one of my go-to authors since I was a junior in high school, which is a lot longer ago than I care to admit. I’ve built boats with the Quinns, cast spells with the Three Sisters, searched for the three keys, and battled vampires with the circle. When I saw that Nora was nominated for a RITA this year, I knew I had to read and review that book. I have to say, I am slightly disappointed with it.
Stars of Fortune is the first book in a new paranormal trilogy and to be honest, it is quite similar to some of Nora’s more recent paranormal titles, especially the Circle Trilogy, which involved a group of relative strangers who unite to defeat an evil vampire bent on dominating the worlds. The Guardian Trilogy has basically the same plot, except the villain is a goddess and not a vampire.
The similarities don’t stop with just the plot; there is one scene in particular that reminded me of a similar scene in Morrigan’s Cross, the first book in the Circle Trilogy. In that book, one of the characters, a woman from another world, travels to our world and meets a man named King. She assumes that because his name is King that he is one. The same thing happened here. Annika, a mermaid, comes into our world and meets a man with the last name King, again assuming that he is a king because it is his name. Maybe I’ve just read too many of her books, but whatever the reason, it makes me sad.
One of the other things that bothered me about this book was how easy everything seemed to be. First, Sasha meets both Riley and Bran within hours of stepping foot on Corfu. She didn’t have to search for them—they were just there. It is the same with Sawyer, Annika, and Doyle. They never had to search for anyone. It was truly bizarre how they were able to just find each other. Then, without any trouble, Riley is able to secure a beautiful villa for them to live in free of charge. I get that this is a paranormal novel, but there is only so far that I can suspend my disbelief.
Another issue I had was that I just didn’t see the connection between Bran and Sasha. Yes, he was attracted to her (and she to him, obviously), but he was also attracted to Riley the first time they met. Their entire relationship was based on the shared mission to find the stars. It almost seemed as if the idea that they were destined to be together meant skipping steps in the romance. Neither agonized over the fact that the other might not be interested. They just accepted that they were going to be together and so they were.
All that said, this wasn’t a bad book—I doubt that Nora could write a truly bad book if someone held a gun to her head and forced her to write. The prose is beautiful and puts me in mind of a fairy tale at times. It literally pulls you in and doesn’t let you go until you’ve finished the entire book.
Prose aside, I am looking forward to learning more about the other characters, whose backstories are more interesting that those of Bran and Sasha. I want to know about Annika’s life under the sea, Sawyer’s ability to travel through space and time, Riley’s life as a Lycan, and the whole story behind Doyle’s situation (this was a big reveal at the end of the book, so I don’t want to spoil it). Knowing this, Stars of Fortune did its job. It introduced me to a world full of characters and interested me enough to continue with the series. I just hope that it gets better from here.
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Thanks!
I agree with you, ScifiGirl1986, in that this particular title didn’t grab me. Time will tell as to whether I pick up the next book in this series. Thanks for sharing your review.
I agree, Nora seems to be phoning them in lately – although I didn’t find this one quite as bad of a rehash as the recent Dark Witch. The best way I had to describe that was that it read like she put previous books in a blender, pulsed 15 times, and pasted the result on paper.
But yeah, I’ll read the next in the series. Not going to buy it, though.
I haven’t really enjoyed a paranormal by NR since the Key Trilogy, but I enjoyed Stars of Fortune. It was on Corfu, beautiful Corfu and it was a lot fun. I didn’t ever warm up to Sasha, but everyone else was great. I look forward to going to Capri in the next book.
Thanks for the review!
Yeah, I agree that everything was WAY too easy for the characters in this book. It was my first foray into ParaNora, and I think I may have to check out one of her earlier ones instead…
@Liv, check out the Three Sisters Island Trilogy or the Sign of Seven Trilogy.
@Wench, I’ve tried to read Dark Witch twice, but neither time was I able to finish it.
I’m going to skip this book, and in fact, I may be done with Nora Roberts altogether. I tried reading “Chasing Fire” a couple of years ago and got halfway through before giving up. I hadn’t read anything “new” by her until I forced myself to slog through “Dark Witch” last week. At one point I almost fell asleep (it was only 8:30 p.m.!) and had to switch to another book I had already read to stay awake until 10:00, a reasonable bedtime. That’s how boring it was. I finished it the next evening, but she seems to have lost her spark along with any truly original ideas. I wish she would take a break for a while, and stop churning them out. She’s already rich; she can certainly afford to rest her writing muscles!
Is this a new book by Roberts? I could swear I read it five years ago. There volumes, “stars” in the title.
Someone made the comment about “phoning it in.” Lately, I am very sorry to say, I have been feeling that way about a lot of books I’ve read by established romance writers. A lot of them.
@Gloramarie Amalfitano, yes this is a new book by her. I think she wrote some books with “star” in the title back in the late 80’s or 90’s. This has nothing to do with those books.
I borrowed this one from the library a couple months back but sadly didn’t make it to Chapter 5. It just didn’t work for me.
And I tried to read The Obsession and was somewhat engaged… Until just around the halfway mark. After that I gave up. (Is anyone else sick of all the renovation, remodeling, decorating details in the more recent books?)
I’m not quite sure what happened. I used to race through Nora’s books, now I’m not even finishing them. Has her work changed, or is it just me?
@Jenns, it is definitely not you. The only one of her recent books that I have liked (other than the J.D. Robb titles) was The Witness and even that book had its problems. I downloaded The Obsession the week it came out, but I have yet to open it. 🙁
So glad that I’m not the only one feeling this…while this book was better than the Cousins O’Dwyer series, I agree that her recent work feels like pastiches of her older novels. The J.D. Robb books are still working for me, but I haven’t been able to read one of her standalones in years, which makes me sad, as Roberts was my intro to romance novels.
The older “stars” books were the “Stars of Mithra” series, I believe.
I love La Nora, but dammit, Gina. I’m concerned that this is becoming a mad-libs style of writing. Quick, we need a blonde, a brunette and a redhead. One ice-bitchy professional, one artsy or angst-y female and one timid/uber-bland/hiding her light under a bushel chick. We need to: find an artifact, defeat an evil that threatens the world and/or right ALL THE WRONGS of our venerable ancestors. The men: 1 hot nerdy type, 1 hot emotionally unavailable jerkish/oh-so-misunderstood guy and the hot, quiet one. Add an evil person and stir. We all do our happy part and fall into bed/relationships/twu wuv asap, and we all deal with our *sob* variety of baggages so everyone gets their HEA. No muss, no fuss. It’s almost clinical at this point.
The Three Sisters are a classic example of this format, but they were excellent.
It’s grown significantly formulaic, particularly the last 703 books about remodeling and the paranormal trilogies. Personally, I give a so-poso zero flying effs about hammers, cabinet hardware and crown molding. Yeesh. I just want to LIKE these people about whom I’m reading, and I’d quite prefer to never read of remodel-ey things EVAH AGAIN.
But…I’m a sucker. I’ll buy it. I always do. It’s a compulsion. I need reading rehab.
I’m surprised that people are noticing this now. Other than the plots, it’s the same thing with her characters. At least in paranormals. I’m intrigue with the idea of a mermaid and time traveler so I may pick it up for that alone but maybe not as I don’t want to feel as if I’m reading the same book–just different names and places.
I finished the second book in the Cousins O’Dwyer book today. It was completely dreadful, and this books sounds exactly like it. I used to be able to count on Nora for a fast, fun read. Now, they are just painful.
@Cassie, don’t bother. This book was interesting enough that I finished it and wanted to read the 2nd book, which thanks to Netgalley I didn’t have to pay for it. Unfortunately, I barely made it 30% of the way through it. So disappointed.
I did start The Obsession yesterday and so far so good. We’ll see how it goes.
This review was not surprising at all, I’m sad to say. NR and Sandra Brown were my guides into romance novels and I used to read their stuff as soon as it came out up until about 3 years ago when I stopped reading their stuff altogether. Unfortunately, the sameness in NR’s books has been an issue for me for much, much longer than that and I was more or less picking up her books out of misplaced loyalty. I guess I’ll continue to avoid them a bit longer.
Sadly, I fear too many authors are falling into the trap of writing to a formula and telling the same story over and over with only names and places the same. At least this is how it feels to me. I am wary of authors who write series. Especially series with a lot of books to them. Series like Charming Countesses of Regency London, Dashing Dukes of Regency London, Endearing Earls of Regency London, Many Marquises of Regency London, Virile Viscounts of Regency London. You get the idea.
This is honestly the first book of hers I have ever read and I have to agree there are some parts that felt rushed or to easy such as when they were fighting nerezza near the end of the book. I have to say it was a very enjoyable book, it just could have been better.