The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk, Crowns of Nyaxia book 4, by Carissa Broadbent was the 58th book I read this year.
You can read my review for book 1: The Serpent and the Wings of Night
Book 2: The Ashes and the Star Cursed King
Book 3: The Songbird and the Heart of Stone
Books 1 and 2 follow Oraya’s and Rhain’s story, book 3 & 4 is Mische and Asar’s story.
Obviously, there is potential for spoilers for Mische’s first book (book 3) and some spoilers for books 1 and 2.
A summary attempt
This book picks up after Mische’s sacrifice at the end of book 3, she is now in the land of the dead, as one of the dead. Asar has been taken by the God’s and is being held in their city. They don’t know what to do with Asar and the piece of divinity inside of him, plus they have no idea how they are going to bring the sun back. Mische begins to journey through death with the surprising assistance of Victor, The Nightborn King (Oraya’s father from book 1). The underworld is breaking apart and Victor seems to think Mische can fix it. Asar breaks out of the land of the God’s with the help of fate and travels the web that covers the world which only Gods can travel to pull Mische from the underworld.
Together, they set out to find the God touched pieces left behind by the God of death, to complete Asar’s ascendence to divinity and hopefully save the underworld. Except the God’s don’t want them to have that kind of power and Nyaxia is angry that Asar didn’t complete their bargain and she is too wrapped in her war with the other Gods to care about the underworld collapses, taking the earth with it. Asar hopes to find a way to truly return Mische to the land of the living but can he do it without losing touch with his humanity? Can they save the world from a war between the Gods?
My thoughts
Honestly, I am having trouble keeping track of all the lore of the Gods in this series. I don’t know if it’s the gap between when I’ve read each book or if it’s not being explained thoroughly enough. That aside, this series has definitely evolved to a different style than where it started, we’re very much now in a story of the Gods and their wars. It’s very epic and in the middle of it all is Mische and Asar’s love story, although the things keeping them apart in this book are more to do with Mische’s death and Asar’s divinity. I liked how their story wraps up however. We also see characters from the novellas Six Scorched Roses and Slaying the Vampire Conquerer in this book and see a little more of how those stories tie into the main story.
I did like this book, I think that people who started reading this series because they were told it was just your basic romantasy aren’t going enjoy the later books as much.
Antonia Bernardin 