Book Review: ‘The Crowns of Nyaxia’ Duology By Carissa Broadbent
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The Crowns of Nyaxia is a six-book series broken up into three standalone duets. The Nightborn duet (consisting of The Serpent and The Wings of Night and The Ashes and The Star-Cursed King) has already been released. There’s no information on when we’ll be getting the next set, but it’s not likely to be in 2023. Two of Carissa Broadbent’s other works, Six Scorched Roses and Slaying the Vampire Conqueror, are also set in the same world. The Nightborn duet is often described as a spicy Hunger Games with vampires. For sensitive readers, check the trigger warnings; these books do have scenes of a sexual nature.
The Serpent and the Wings of Night
The Serpent and the Wings of Night is the first novel in the Crowns of Nyaxia series. It follows Oraya, a human raised by a vampire king, as she fights her way through a deadly tournament called the Kejari. The blurb makes it sound like a typical new adult/romantasy. A young female heroine, deadly trials, enemies to lovers, vampires. All the TikTok fantasy tropes ticked off.
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Yes, I know we are all bored. There are a million books out there with the same premise. But don’t breeze past Broadbent’s novel just yet; it scored a massive 4.4 on Goodreads for a reason.
The Serpent and the Wings of Night is a true enemies-to-lovers trope. The main characters do genuinely try to kill each other; they don’t just throw quips for a page before gazing longingly into each other’s eyes. Broadbent’s vampires have wings and a serious infighting problem. Their tribalism and the quest for power is what drives the book; humans barely come into it. It’s not Twilight.
The most interesting relationship in The Serpent and the Wings of Night, strangely, isn’t between protagonists Oraya and Raihn, although they do have genuine chemistry. It’s between Oraya and her father, Vincent. The relationship that Broadbent has written is complex, and it changes as Oraya evolves and views it through more mature eyes. The genocidal-but-still-endearing (TikTok loves a morally gray “Zaddy”) vampire deserves his own spin-off novella. something the fans on Goodreads are already demanding.
The Serpent and the Wings of Night is charming. Readers will probably see the big reveal/cliffhanger coming a mile away (Broadbent’s foreshadowing is like a big neon sign). But in a genre based on tropes, that’s not necessarily a problem.
The book is pacey, a good mix of action and worldbuilding. Broadbent has built an extensive mythology, more in-depth than many of her peers. The magic system is a little flexible and feels a bit built to order, but the vampire tribes and the heir marks, which are the backbone of the story, come across strongly.
9/10 – Everyone loves a beer-drinking, swearing vampire with wings.
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The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King
The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King continues the story after a cliffhanger at the end of the first book…and then nothing really happens. Oraya, the kickass backchatting protagonist, spends a good portion of this book either injured or imprisoned. It slows the action down considerably every time we have to wait for her to recover or escape.
The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King doesn’t really get going until chapter 19, when readers meet Oraya’s creepy cousin Evelaena. Her clutch of child vampires and problematic relationship with Vincent is genuinely scary, but she’s killed after 50 pages. Broadbent throws many side characters at the reader in this book, and one of the most interesting is reduced to a footnote.
There are tons of characters in the second book screaming for the reader’s attention. The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King suffers as Broadbent tries to throw too many into the spotlight. Vale and Lilith from Six Scorched Roses make an appearance. The cigarillo-smoking man, Septimus, whom Broadbent built up as a villain all the way through the first book, fades strangely into the background in favor of newcomer Simon. He just doesn’t have the same gravitas.
Whereas The Serpent and The Wings of Night was based in one location, we travel all over the Obitraes in The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King, from chapter to chapter, and it’s almost hard to keep track. Broadbent’s plot isn’t as tight as in her first book, but the characters are still endearing. We still have the back-and-forth banter between Raihn and Oraya. And, of course, more heart-wrenching moments with Vincent. Even when he’s not there, he’s ever-present.
5/10 It's still a good read, but not it doesn’t have the quality of the first book.
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