The Songbird & the Heart of Stone by Carissa Broadbent – Review

Published: November 19, 2024

Publisher: Bramble

Series: Crowns of Nyaxia #3

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 498 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4 Stars

Synopsis:
New York Times bestselling author and BookTok sensation Carissa Broadbent returns with a brand new novel in the Crowns of Nyaxia series, Songbird and the Heart of Stone, where A Court of Thorns and Roses meets Dante’s Inferno, in an epic fantasy romance of love and treachery between mortals and gods. Features beautiful case art and a detailed map.

In the descent to the underworld, a bride of the sun must choose between the light of her redemption… or a dark love that defies the gods themselves

Mische lost everything when she was forcibly Turned into a vampire – her home, her humanity, and most devastating of all, the love of the sun god to whom she had devoted her life. Now, sentenced to death for murdering the vampire prince who Turned her, redemption feels impossible.

But when Mische is saved by Asar, the bastard prince of the House of Shadow with a past as brutal as his scars, she’s forced into a mission worse than execution: a journey to the underworld to resurrect the god of death himself.

Yet, Mische’s punishment may be the key to her salvation. In a secret meeting, her sun god commands her to help Asar in his mission, only to betray him… by killing the very death god she’ll help resurrect.

Mische and Asar must travel the treacherous path to the underworld, facing trials, beasts, and the vengeful ghosts of their pasts. Yet, most dangerous of all is the alluring call of the darkness – and her forbidden attraction to Asar, a burgeoning bond that risks invoking the wrath of gods.

As her betrayal looms, the underworld closes in and angry gods are growing restless. Mische will be forced to choose between the redemption of the sun or the damnation of the darkness.

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I believe by this point, I would consider myself a diehard Carissa Broadbent fan. The War of Lost Hearts series is probably my favorite fantasy romance of all time at this point and The Crowns of Nyaxia books have been loads of drama filled fun and The Songbird & the Heart of Stone continues that. While set in the same world as the Nightborn duet, this latest installment follows Mische, the fiery turned vampire we were introduced to during the Kejari trials. Unfortunately for Mische, the Kejari wasn’t the first or the last set of trials she would be going through. 

Mische has left Raihn and Oraya in hopes of protecting them after she slew her maker and heir to the Shadowborn vampires during the Kejari, but she’s been captured despite her best efforts. Rather than being killed by the Shadowborn king, Mische is given to his second, bastard son Asar for a mysterious mission that requires a follower of the sun god, Atroxus. Mische and Asar will be traveling into the underworld to raise Nyaxia’s beloved – the death god himself – and Asar needs a wielder of Atroxus’ magic to help pass through the various trials they will surely face in the underworld. Mische is tasked by Atroxus to kill the death god permanently once he is resurrected and Atroxus will once again grant Mische his favor, despite having become a vampire. 

I enjoyed Mische and Asar as our main characters and their slow gravitation toward one another over the course of the story. Both have haunting backstories and Mische has a hefty dose of guilt (both religious and not) regarding her turning, the death of her sister and best friend, the abandonment of Atroxus… I could go on. Asar gives standard sad ‘shadow daddy’ vibes and yet, despite his basicness, I liked him and his effort to make things better for those trapped souls that haven’t moved on. He also has a boatload of unresolved trauma and it’s quite cathartic watching him and Mische work through some of this together. Asar and Mische also have the most delectable, unsubtle tension that fortunately gets (somewhat) resolved by the end of this installment, so it’s also not without a degree of spice.

The plot on the other hand… while I would say it was overall interesting, I did think it was a bit repetitive. I suppose fortunately this meant I could focus more on the characters and their yearning more than I needed to focus on the copious shadowy figures they constantly needed to slay on their downward descent. There were definitely some segments that stood out from the monotony of their journey and I also enjoyed the flashback scenes, which I can’t say is always the case in a book. Unfortunately, as someone who loves a really good blend of well executed plot and romance, this one just didn’t quite live up to my hopes.

Overall, this was a solid installment with characters I easily found myself rooting for and a bombshell ending, which seems to be par for the course for the first book in the Nyaxia duets at this point. It certainly hooks the reader for the second installment! I can’t wait to see where this goes next because I honestly have no idea. I will note, I didn’t care for the narrator at first, but she grew on me as the story progressed. I’m also a little surprised at the number of negative reviews I’m seeing for this, though many seem to have similar thoughts regarding the plot.