Endless Water, Starless Sky

by Rosamund Hodge

Overview

Sabriel meets Romeo and Juliet in the stunning sequel to Bright Smoke, Cold Fire—from Rosamund Hodge, the author of Cruel Beauty and Crimson Bound.

In the last days of the world, the walls of Viyara are still falling, and the dead are rising faster than ever.

Juliet is trapped—ordered by Lord Ineo of the Mahyanai to sacrifice the remaining members of her family, the Catresou, to stave off the end of the world. Though they’re certain his plan is useless, Juliet and her former friend Runajo must comply with Lord Ineo’s wishes—unless they can discover a different, darker path to protecting Viyara.

Romeo is tortured: Finally aware that his true love is alive, he is at once elated and devastated, for his actions led directly to the destruction of her clan. The only way to redemption is to offer his life to the Catresou to protect and support them . . . even if it means dying to do so.

When Romeo’s and Juliet’s paths converge once again, only a journey into Death will offer answers and the key to saving them all—but is it a journey either of them will survive?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062369451
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	12/03/2019
Series:	Bright Smoke, Cold Fire , #2
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	547,634
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Rosamund Hodge grew up as a homeschooler in Los Angeles, where she spent her time reading everything she could get her hands on, but especially fantasy and mythology. She received a BA in English from the University of Dallas and an MSt in medieval English from Oxford. She now lives in Seattle, Washington, with seven toy cats and a plush Cthulhu. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Cruel Beauty; Gilded Ashes, a Cruel Beauty novella; Crimson Bound; Bright Smoke, Cold Fire; and Endless Water, Starless Sky. Visit her online at www.rosamundhodge.net.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE: “High stakes, desperate love, and a healthy dose of gore keep this update fresh and intriguing.

Booklist

Praise for CRIMSON BOUND: “An intoxicatingly dark story of love, lust, murder, and redemption.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

Praise for BRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE: “High stakes, desperate love, and a healthy dose of gore keep this update fresh and intriguing.

Booklist

Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “Will have readers clutching the book and flying through the pages.” %COMM_CONTRIB%Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “The push and pull romance between Nyx and Ignifex is pure fairy tale, but the characters themselves are complex and genuinely human as they struggle with their own culpability in a situation that forces them to choose between selfishness and selflessness.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “A completely engrossing tale.

Alex Flinn

Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “A dazzling and clever retelling, Cruel Beauty is delightfully dark, lushly romantic, and utterly spellbinding. I adored it, and can’t wait to read Hodge’s next novel!

Sarah J. Maas

Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “Will have readers clutching the book and flying through the pages.

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

Praise for CRUEL BEAUTY: “What a stunning debut. This is a book you will want to read as fast as you can for the intricate plot and as slowly as you can to savor the gorgeous world-building and the ravishing love story.

Sherry Thomas

More romantic and even more mystical than its predecessor

Booklist Online

Praise for CRIMSON BOUND: “An intoxicatingly dark story of love, lust, murder, and redemption.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)

04/01/2018
Gr 9 Up—Continuing where Bright Smoke, Cold Fire ended, young lovers, loosely based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet continue to search for some way they can happily be united, despite the fact that Romeo is dead and Juliet ("the sword of the Catresou") is bound to forever make war on Romeo's clan, the Mahyanai. Further complicating the plot, all people are threatened by the Ruining, a fog-shrouded event that will render the land lifeless. Hodge continues building the world of Viyara and the Lower City, and the concept of zoura: living rightly, and being protected in the afterlife. Paris and Tybalt put in appearances, along with Runajo, the gender-fluid Vai, a Master Necromancer, revenants, and the living dead. While violent passages are a small proportion of the book, squeamish readers should note that there are beheadings, descriptions of cutting (self and others), and rivers filled with boiling blood. The uplifting ending points toward a third book. VERDICT Fans of the previous volume will enjoy this continuation; new readers will be a bit lost. A strong choice where the first book is popular.—Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX

School Library Journal

2018-03-20
Their last misadventures brought them close to death, but the star-crossed lovers roar back to life in this sequel.Grief- and guilt-stricken, the survivors now (again) serve opposing families. Always dramatic, Mahyanai Romeo becomes a vigilante to protect his fugitive (and ungrateful) Catresou in-laws. Meanwhile, Juliet, mistakenly bonded to Mahyanai Runajo, seeks loopholes in her new in-laws'/captors' commands even as they wield her like a weapon against her Catresou kin. Even Paris reappears, albeit as one of the living dead enslaved by the Master Necromancer, whose magical malevolence has hastened the Ruining, eroding the blood-sacrifice-fueled walls around Viyara and rapidly reanimating the dead as ravenous revenants. Gender-bending Vai—likely Twelfth Night's Viola and one of the few main characters of color—continues to defend the Lower City. Reunion and romance are repeatedly postponed, and the apparent finale pauses for a strange detour into the land of Death, where the four protagonists slog through a Dantesque nightscape of tormented souls, allegorical semimedieval monsters, and Greek-myth-level trials. With a multitude of points of view, chaotic fight scenes, and the feverish medieval-world-besieged-by-zombies plot, readers may not even care about Hodge's (Bright Smoke, Cold Fire, 2016, etc.) departure from Shakespeare or the absence of the Bard's levity.Teens seeking melodrama, tense tragedy, and poignantly self-sacrificing protagonists will be amply rewarded. (Fantasy. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews

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