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Book: “Carving Shadows into Gold”
Publishing Info: Bloomsbury YA, January 2025
Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!
Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound
Book Description: The King’s Courier Tycho has made a treacherous bargain. Now beholden to the magical scraver who saved King Gray’s life, one false move could end everything.
Jax escaped his life in Briarlock and traveled with Tycho to Emberfall. But life outside his small village brings unexpected challenges–and unlikely adversaries.
After years of hating the royal family and their magic, Callyn never expected to be at the Queen’s side, with magic on her fingertips. But at the royal court, she can’t trust anyone–including the man she thought she loved.
Cast apart, Tycho, Jax, and Callyn must learn to wield the magic that is dividing their kingdom. As the magical scravers attack from the north and the king’s rivals gain strength, time is running out.
War is looming. Love is tested. And magic could be the only answer. . .
Review: We’re back with another one of those strange cases where I end up reviewing a book in a series that I’ve read but not reviewed before on the blog. Like the other instances, this often happens when I receive a physical ARC of the book and want to give it the full treatment of a complete review rather than just an Instagram cover reveal or what have you. So, here we are, taking on the second book in the “Forging Silver Into Stars” series!
I won’t give a full review of the first book, obviously, but as a brief summary: I liked it for the most part! I’ve had a very hit-and-miss experience reading Kemmerer’s books. They always sound right up my alley, but then sometimes fail to deliver on the character front. The first book in this series did a lot of things right, especially with the introduction of a banger of a cast. That being the case, I was excited to jump into this second book and see where the story went from there!
Unfortunately, this one didn’t quite live up to the first one (I would have rated that one around 8). But let’s start with some of the good things. I was excited to return to this world and explore where the story went. And I did like some of the turns the story introduced. However, they were also few and far between. The first book had a fast, zippy feel to the pacing, allowing me to whip through it in only a few reading sessions. This one, while I could objectively point to things happening on the page, often felt much more bogged down, seeming to stall out at random points throughout, making the book all too easy to be set down.
As for the characters, in the first book I enjoyed them all fairly equally (a rare and praise-worthy thing, especially for a reader like me who often struggles with ensemble casts!). Here, however, I definitely found myself gravitating towards Callyn’s story. Oddly, this wasn’t necessarily because her character had any incredible growth or huge plot beats. Instead, of the characters, she was the only one who seemed to retain the level of competence and characterization that we saw in the first book. Tycho, in particular, felt like such a lesser version of the character we met in the first book. It was really odd! When before he had been incredibly compelling, here, he just seemed to…fade. Further, other characters became downright unlikable, like Grey.
As for the romance, it, too, felt greatly reduced from the first book. There were crumbs to be found if you really squinted, but if you’re going into this sequel looking for a lot of movement in this area, I think you’ll probably be disappointed.
Overall, this one feels like a classic example of second book syndrome. There simply wasn’t enough plot to flesh out the entire book. So instead, the characters are done dirty to simply get words on the page. This is definitely something I’ve seen before from Kemmerer (struggles with sustained characterization across a series). But she’s also really come through in the past, so I’ll likely still check out the next in the series. If you’re a fan of her books, you’ll probably want to read this one just to stay up-to-date with the series. But at this point, it’s definitely the weakest so far.
Rating 7: A bit too slow on every front and missing some of the spark from the first book. Or, perhaps, I’m simply growing out of Kemmerer’s style of YA.
Reader’s Advisory:
“Carving Shadows into Gold” can be found on these Goodreads lists: Silver and Gold and YA Novels of 2025.
The Library Ladies 