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#BookReview: When the Moongates Grew Over: The Last Sun-Born by Kate Frantz @greatiskate @bookroar_tweets

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Hi everyone! Today, I have a book review for an author I came across via a book review site, BookRoar: When the Moongates Grew Over: The Last Sun-Born  by Kate Frantz >>>

Book cover for The Last Sun-born by Kate FrantzAbout the Book:

Lewel was born in the dark. Her sun-born identity hidden in lies and isolation. A life suffocated by fear of what the moon-born must do if they discovered the truth. Yet Lewel was not destined to remain in the shadows. There was a true evil barreling into the world that only she could stop. Embarking on a suicide mission that would test her merit, Lewel finds herself discovering the joy of friendship even while facing the grief of fate. As the ancient text prophesies: When the moon dances Upon open palm Thy destiny is glory. For Lewel, glory could only come by way of death.  

My Review:

🌟🌟🌟🌟

A gripping read but lacks resolution at the end.

I haven’t come across this writer before, but the title, cover, and book description all pulled me in, so I grabbed a Kindle copy.

‘Ithriel wailed as they snatched the child from her grasp.’ … this tense opening line in the prologue shows us characters we don’t meet again in the main narrative; however, it sets up the world and its rules in a wonderfully succinct way, which is a great use of a prologue. From here, in Chapter One, we meet the main character, Lewel, right as her life is about to change drastically. 

Sun-born, Lewel has been kept hidden away all her life and told she’s an abomination. Then two moon-born strangers come to the tiny hut she’s spent her life in and take her away. From here, Lewel is faced with a barrage of new information and has to decide what’s true and what isn’t. Everyone she meets seems to have an agenda, and lies and deception abound, as does danger and challenge.

The characterisation and world building is well done, and some lovely descriptive sentences give the narrative a nice flow. Unfortunately, the writing also suffers from grammar and punctuation issues, as well as passive writing, missing words, and the over use of filler words.

The plot and pacing are great, right up until the end, where the story finishes abruptly with a ‘to be continued’ announcement. None of the plot threads so wonderfully woven are resolved or tied off at all. This makes the book feel like the set up for a story rather than a finished piece with a beginning, middle, and an end. All of which have left me frustrated as a reader. 

This mixture of fantastic and frustrating makes it difficult for me to rate this read. Some of it is brilliant while other bits need work. In a case such as this, I find it helps me to break the writing down into separate elements, rate those, then add the scores together and divide by the number of elements to give me an average. Here goes …

 

Plot and Pacing … 5

World building … 5

Characterisation … 4

Grammar, punctuation, etc. … 2

Dialogue … 3.5

Finale/Resolution … 1

 

This gives us 20.5 divided by 6 = near enough 3.5, which I round up to 4 stars for rating purposes. With some tweaking, I can see this as an absolute gem of a read that would get an easy, solid 5 stars. Kate Frantz is definitely an author to watch, and I look forward to seeing her future works.

I enjoyed this read immensely and finished it quickly. If you don’t mind a wide-open ending and waiting for the next book in the series, then definitely go and buy this book!

***

NOTE ON RATINGS: I consider a 3-star rating a positive review. Picky about which books I give 5 stars to, I reserve this highest rating for the stories I find stunning and which moved me.

5 STARS: IT WAS AMAZING! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! — Highly Recommended.
4 STARS: I WOULD PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER — Go read this book.
3 STARS: IT WAS GOOD! — An okay read. Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it.
2 STARS: I MAY HAVE LIKED A FEW THINGS —Lacking in some areas: writing, characterisation, and/or problematic plot lines.
1 STAR: NOT MY CUP OF TEA —Lots of issues with this book.

I’d love to hear what you think of this review. Thanks for stopping by 🙂

 

For anyone interested, here are the Amazon links …

UK … https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08R8XRTB2/

US … https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R8XRTB2/

 

24 Comments on “#BookReview: When the Moongates Grew Over: The Last Sun-Born by Kate Frantz @greatiskate @bookroar_tweets”

  1. Hi Harmony, it is a great pity about the resolution. That would be important to me too and it’s a turn off to reading this book.

  2. Wonderful review, although not really my genre. And as soon as I read ‘no resolution’, it reminded me about a big fat book I grueled through only to find the lamest ending. Will not be doing that again. 🙂 xxx

  3. I don’t mind cliffhanger endings that set you up for the next book in a series, but they need to have a sense of completing some conflict within the story. Too bad this one fell short.

  4. I’m a member of Book Roar too, Harmony, and need to get back over there soon. Thanks for the review of this one. It sounds like it has a lot of promise if the author can tidy it up a bit and reconsider the ending. Thanks for the thoughtful review.

  5. The blurb makes this sound like a good read, but I hate the getting to the end of the book and having no resolution at all. When I invest my time, and we all have precious little time to invest, we need more than the author gave. I don’t mind a cliffhanger if there is some resolution, but to have none, that will keep me away.

    Loved your review and how you graded each element.

    • Right, those are hours I won’t get back. Thanks, Michele. I’m happy you liked the graded elements 💕🙂

  6. I like the way you broke down your review, Harmony. So disappointing about the ending. With a little work, it sounds like this could be a great read!

    • Thanks, Jacqui. I so hated not knowing how things turned out. 💕🙂

  9. This isn’t a genre I normally read, and combined with the grammar issues and unresolved ending, I know it’s a pass for me. But I wish the author well. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Harmony.

  10. Too bad about the ending. I hate to invest so much time in a book only to be let down at the end.

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Harmony

  11. I hope the author reads this review and takes it on board. Why keep readers waiting for the next book, when she could rewrite this one?