ALC Review: Heavenly Bodies by Imani Erriu
Release date: 14 February 2022 (indie), 14 January 2025 (B5)
Rating: 3.5/5
Narrator: Jane Collingwood
Narration Rating: 4/5
Book Box(es) and SE’s: FairyLoot December Romantasy, Waterstones Deluxe Edition, Waterstones HB exclusive, Barnes and Noble exclusive
Synopsis: "I defy the stars."
In a world where no entities exist but the Stars, cruel and merciless gods that watch over the world, Elara has been cursed by fate. A prophecy that promises she will fall for a Star, and it will kill them both.
But when one descends to wreak havoc on Elara's Kingdom, she is forced to flee into the arms of her enemy in the neighbouring country.
As she learns more about her own magic, and the depth of the Stars' deceit, she also finds herself learning more about the country she is forced to take refuge in, and the enemy prince forced to train her into a weapon.
Something dark brews within her, a power made of night and shadows that begs to be broken free.
Review
I’m determined to find one book hyped up by TikTok that lives up to the hype. Heavenly Bodies wasn’t terrible but it also doesn’t live up to the hype for me. Different elements of this story reminded me of so many other stories that it was hard to pick it out from the myriad other romantasy tales already on offer. I’ll keep trying, but I think maybe 2025 might be the year for me to give up on trying to chase after some of the fervor these stories garner.
Erriu’s story first came out in 2022, so right about the time the Reylo craze really crested, and this book really feels like a Reylo book. I can’t really say the craze gets on my nerves too badly, as it’s not hard to believe a former Marine would steal so many hearts. shrug I wish there really were some new things up and coming in the romantasy genre to really wow readers and give us something we haven’t read before. I’m really craving something that will give readers fantasy that really shatters the limits of the imagination.
The biggest snag for this one—Stockholm Syndrome. Our heroine starts the story on the run and gets picked up, forcefully, and carried off to a neighboring kingdom against her will and winds up falling for one of the people holding her captive. No matter what kind of magical, glittery façade gets painted on that kind of story, it’s a steaming pile of whoa, nuh-uh. I really couldn’t believe, with the prevalence of trigger and content warnings, this book wasn’t splattered with the red flags for this.
Even ignoring the deeper problems for this story, the two main characters just don’t click for me. How do they even love one another? The circumstances they’re in certainly don’t provide the atmosphere for it. If every person enduring physical training fell in love with each other, there wouldn’t be any single people leaving any kind of cross fit or Peloton class anywhere—they'd all find true love.
I usually love the narration for many of the bigger releases, but I couldn’t quite match this narrator with the story here. I haven’t listened to Collingwood before—I really think I would have enjoyed the narration better had the story been told in dual POV and had a narrator for each main character. Collingwood does a fantastic job, no doubt, but the male voices were hard to distinguish one from the other excepting some were a bit deeper than others. I think perhaps the narrator might not be the right fit for the story, not that the narrator has any kind of objective shortcoming overall.
Overall, 3.5 for the story and 4 for the narration. I can’t really see how the story stands out above the rest of the stories on the market. I can see how it appeals, though. I just need more from my stories.
My thanks to Random House Canada and LibroFM for the ALC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.
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