Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White
By: Amélie Wen Zhao
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Number of Pages: 345
Published: January 2, 2024
Publisher: Delacorte
Dates Read: February 28, 2024 - March 2, 2024
Format: Library Book / Audiobook

The ending of the Song of the Last Kingdom duology picks up years after the Elantian’s invaded Lan’s homeland and killed her mother. Determined to finish her mother’s legacy, Lan departs to destroy the Demon Gods. Meanwhile, Zen makes a deal with the Demon God known as the Black Tortoise and has set out to save everyone – even if that means destroying himself. 

The world building in this book was so much more than I felt like we got in the first book. We find out more about the Demon Gods and how they came to be and why. We find out the history of the imperial clan and how they’ve wiped out complete clans and disconnected people from their culture and ancestors.

There is a lot of yearning in this book – which is why I didn’t give it full five stars (sorry, I’m not the biggest fan of YA romance). As much as the first book had more action packed scenes, this one was more of a build up to the conclusion, which made me care more for Lan and Zen. 

I was worried we wouldn’t have everything wrapped up as we were still given quite a bit of newer things with this book as well, but I really love and appreciate the ending of the series.

Overall, I can see myself recommending this series to those who love fantasy, especially those inspired by Chinese mythology and folklore. The writing is gorgeous and the world building was amazing. This was a series that I myself got into better while listening to as an audiobook, and that was mostly because I would get stuck on pronouncing things correctly.