Book Review: A Feast For Starving Stone

Beth Cato, A Feast For Starving Stone. How epic of a title is that??

First, the blurb, courtesy Goodreads:

Two countries at war. A delicious taste of magic. And a fierce princess comes of age in a rousing adventure by the author of A Thousand Recipes for Revenge. Princess Solenn’s marriage into royalty should have unified the continental neighbors of Verdania and Solenn’s homeland of Braiz against a common enemy. the country of Albion. Thanks to Albion’s cunning sabotage, Verdania is now Braiz’s lethal rival. And the dead Braizian sailors washed ashore near Solenn’s château are just the beginning.

Arriving in the midst of danger, Ada Garland, rogue Chef to the Gods, is desperate to reunite with her daughter, Solenn. Not only has open war begun; it’s become heart-wrenchingly personal. Ada’s long-lost, beloved Braizian musketeer, Captain Erwan Corre, is being held in a Verdanian prison, with execution imminent. And her daughter has been tasked with the near-doomed responsibility of uniting violently adversarial countries in peace.

Can Solenn and Ada, coming together, stop their land from descending into all-out war? What must Solenn become, what more will she sacrifice, to do it? As ambassador between two worlds—one of humans, one of magic—Solenn must now draw from both to prevent the worst of things to come.

And now, for my thoughts:

The blurb does not do this book justice. This book & its predecessor are my favorite reads for a while, and not just because I enjoyed the premise of food as magic. (Though, for real, there was no world in which I would pass that up.) I loved Solenn. I loved Ada. I want to list my favorite side characters and why I love them too—pretty much the whole cast—but that would be difficult to do without giving away spoilers from book 1. So my desperate plea here is: SOMEONE READ THIS DUOLOGY SO I CAN TALK ABOUT IT PLEEEEAAAASE.

Moving on.

Solenn was everything I love in a plucky young heroine with none of my pet peeves, so huge win there. She was accomplished and capable without being a Mary Sue. She was complicated and had fears and flaws without being incapable of growth. She was assertive without being a brat. I really enjoyed watching her really come into her own in this book and boss around the adults in the room without actually being bossy; she was competent, not perfect, and she had experience in an area no one else did. And they listened to her, as they should.

And Ada, oh Ada. I loved that the dual POV centered around a mother and daughter, each off having their own adventures in support of each other, unable to actually acknowledge their relationship as mother and daughter because [spoilers]. I loved Ada’s complexity: she’s a veteran with PTSD, but it’s handled well. So often I see PTSD portrayed....poorly, to the point I’ll usually DNF at the first sign the author has no idea what they’re writing about. I did not have that issue with Ada’s character.

I wish I got to see more of Aveyron later in the book, as he kind of faded into the background, but I also appreciated the juxtaposition of a father-and-son duo paired up with a mother-and-daughter duo in a non-romantic way. Selfishly, though, I would have enjoyed some romance lol. I also wish I got to get more into Abonde’s character more, but I liked seeing her relationship with Solenn evolve as well.

And, I’m going to be weird here: I missed Gyst though. He took on more of an antagonistic role in this book versus his previous role, and I am sad about my poor mushroom spore shadow daddy, even if he was acting like a jerk. But his absence was made up for by the larger presence of Hester and Selland. And I might just pinch my fingers together in honor of Selland next time I come near an ocean.

In conclusion: I really really REALLY want to talk about the conclusion (pun intended), because it subverted a lot of my expectations, and I had no idea how it was going to resolve. So, I am begging you, read this book and shoot me a message so we can chat about it.