Between Starfalls (Children of the Nexus, 1); S. Kaeth

“Between Starfalls” is an epic fantasy with a robust world and a large cast of characters. Our main characters are part of a culture that reveres nature and sacred rituals (think elves) but is kind of anti-magic, even though several of their members have psionic abilities. They are a society often plagued by attacks by an enemy they know nothing about. When, Kameada, one of the main characters, is attacked before their Starfall celebration, she decides to take her adopted son up the mountain path alone, where a series of very convenient unfortunate events leads to legends becoming life, and repercussions that they never see coming. This book takes a while to get going, but once it does, you’re in for a treat.

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Kaeth has built a seriously robust world with lots of varying cultures, religions, magic systems, and plenty of political machinations. At times, the world these characters inhabit was almost too overwhelming, taking center stage instead of the characters or even the plot. The story itself is straight forward, relying at times too heavily on certain characters and cultures overreacting to each other and treating the other with such an aggressive narrow-mindedness that it came across as forced, and only there to get the characters into very specific situations. Which, unfortunately, meant that a lot of characters can be frustrating. Plus, given how robust the world is, sometimes certain characters status or even the Elder’s thought processes doesn’t make sense because the world building relies on the reader to remember small details about a culture that the story has been away from for a third of the book.

The writing style is very pleasant, but it did take to just passed the half way point for the book to feel like it was picking up speed again, which made the ending a bit bittersweet for me (and not in an entirely good way, either). Toward the end, I was getting a bit fed up with just how soft Kameada was, and thought we needed more time with her people in order for the ending to stick the landing, as it were. While I appreciate an author who can make an elaborate world for their characters to exist in, this particular book could have used a bit less in order to keep that pace flowing, as some of the things that are hinted at don’t particularly do much for the story and are just kind of thrown in there (like there’s a Pegasus ride at one point and then it never comes up ever again). This first book in the series does a lot to set up what’s to come, so I expect the next book(s) in the series to really fly by with all the action and danger “Between Starfalls” has set up! I just would have liked the pacing to be a bit more balanced in this book, and for some of that extreme narrow-mindedness to be scaled back a bit so I could have better appreciated the character arcs, hence the 3.5 stars. But if you’re in the mood for a fantasy adventure with well thought out world building, give this series a try! And thanks to the author for providing a copy to review