#BlogTour ‘The Girl And The Stars’ by Mark Lawrence

5 May 2020
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About the book…

In the ice, east of the Black Rock, there is a hole into which broken children are thrown.

On Abeth the vastness of the ice holds no room for individuals. Survival together is barely possible. No one survives alone.

To resist the cold, to endure the months of night when even the air itself begins to freeze, requires a special breed. Variation is dangerous, difference is fatal. And Yaz is not the same.

Yaz is torn from the only life she’s ever known, away from her family, from the boy she thought she would spend her days with, and has to carve out a new path for herself in a world whose existence she never suspected. A world full of difference and mystery and danger.

Yaz learns that Abeth is older and stranger than she had ever imagined. She learns that her weaknesses are another kind of strength. And she learns to challenge the cruel arithmetic of survival that has always governed her people.

Only when it’s darkest you can see the stars….

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for having me on the blogtour for ‘The Girl And The Stars’, published by Harper Voyager on the 30th April in hardcover and ebook formats, thanks to Harper for my gifted ebook review copy.

This is the opening sequence in a new set of books by Mark , called The Book Of Ice, and as such, it has a tmendously hard job to do-not only is it world creating, it has to introduce and sustain characters that the readers care enough about to follow the series through.

In Yaz, he has created a hero who from the start has her own way of doing things-it is assumed from the prologue that she is the child who, when given to the priestess of their Ictha tribe to tell the future, kills the priestess instead. She then takes the hand of a witch -being sensible, these parents do not abandon their baby and seek a second opinion, the witch does not get off so easily from contact. Being from an ice tribe, set either in this world or another, having a fortune based in fire is not a great start. All the Ictha tribe travle south every 4 years to present their children to the pit of The Missing, where the priest judges their worthiness to be part of their tribe.

If they are found to be ‘broken’, then into the pit they go.

Yaz is pretty certain that this is the future hanging over her, for various reasons and is hoping that this time , she will be presented and sent down the pit to end the prophecy and free her family to move on.She sees it as a kindness, all the tribe do as if a child is broken, they will not survive on the ice.Rather like the Spartans, they weed out the infirm, the less than worthy rather than tie their fate and survival to those not able to make it in the long run.

A startling development which I won’t discuss because of spoilers, ends up with Yaz on the run, fighting cannibals and finding that her fate has not only been long forseen, other tribes are aware of her special nature too.

What I loved about this book is the strong female lead, the introduction to the mythology of Yaz and the stars, not entirely knowing where it is going in terms of plot development and yet happy to be swept along for the ride. It’s a book to lose yourself in, and, when you’ve finished, immediately look up the publication date of the sequel.

The over arching themes are resonate in the real world as well as in the realms of fantasy-self determination and strength to break out of the chains that society, culture and family have created for you is far from easy, but with a small band of people who believe in you, you can reclaim it for yourself and find self worth. Remember, stars are seen as icy, cold and distant but they are also full of fire and the light we see from Earth is because they are burning…it is all a matter of perspective!

About the author…

Mark Lawrence is married with four children and lives in Bristol with his family. Before becoming a writer his day job was as a research scientist focused on various rather intractable problems in the field of artificial intelligence. He has held secret level clearance with both US and UK governments. At one point he was qualified to say ‘this isn’t rocket science … oh wait, it actually is’.
He is the author of the Broken Empire trilogy (Prince of Thorns, King of Thorns and Emperor of Thorns), the Red Queen’s War trilogy (Prince of Fools, The Liar’s Key and The Wheel of Osheim) and the Book of the Ancestor series (Red Sister, Grey Sister and Holy Sister)