I am ready for book two Ashley Poston! Let’s save the galaxy!
I went into this book with not much expectation. The reviews I had seen weren’t bad but weren’t great, so I had no idea what I was going into for this novel. I adored it.
Heart of Iron came in my OwlCrate book box from a few months back and had to be put on the back burner, because vacation happened. hahaha. I’m so sad I didn’t read it sooner! At the same time, I’m glad I read it later as book two is not out. Which is becoming more and more common in YA new releases.
Heart of Iron – released February 27th 2018
Soul of Stars – (book two) release date of 2019 (no solid date shown yet haha)
Let’s get to the good part, the full review.
“Home wasn’t always warm, and wasn’t always safe, but home was hers. And it was not this prison.”
― Ashley Poston, Heart of Iron
The very amazing parts of this book seem to not be discussed much.
We’re going to fix that right now.
Ashely Poston has created a book that shows the meaning of ‘family’, not necessarily the one you’re born with, but the one that you choose and that supports you in your choices. The family that takes your good and bad, and still tries their best to help you at the end of the day.
Heart of Iron also has a great premise of LOVE IS LOVE! For some reason no one is tagging this LGBT, BUT we have both a gay and lesbian romance in this book. Not only that, they’re presented wonderfully. No, both relationships are not the main character, but I’ve read some recent books that have been released touting the LGBT tag with barely any book time of the relationship. This has book time, this makes a wonderful impact.
Side note: THIS IS A RETELLING! I didn’t know this going in but it’s very obvious about 20% into the story. haha. This retelling is extremely different than most though, hellooooo spaceships and robots.
“The Solani have a saying,” he said, his voice soft. “Al gat ha astri ke’eto. It means something like ‘Until the next star shines on you’–until we meet again. So, Al gat ha astri ke’eto, ma’alor.”
― Ashley Poston, Heart of Iron
My goodness the characters. I have a favorite, obviously…. Jax is amazing. His character channels Wash from Firefly for me, but he is his own unique, amazing, and quirky person. I can’t wait to see what book two has in store for him. He IS a side character, but as you all have seen before in my reviews, side characters are a favorite of mine. hahaha
Ana is the main character and overall she’s good. She doesn’t grip me as much as Di does, or Robb, but she’s growing on me by the end of this first book. I’m interested to see where the growth goes and also how many shenanigans we get into next! She is a strong lead though and I appreciate that in a book. Ana fights back and is fully involved in the action which is a major positive point.
Some things were a little disconcerting. For some reason, maybe cuz I read a lot of YA, a few names pop up that are already heavily associated with other stories for me. Wylan and Rhys specifically. To be honest, Rhys has shown up now in about 4 YA books and I’m starting to think it’ll become a popular baby name at this rate. LOL. So for me when I hear names that are heavily associated with another story, it brings me out of my world immersion. This while irking, didn’t take away from the overall story.
I SHIPPED EVERYONE IN THIS BOOK.
Which is really unusual for me. The relationships were done so well though, I have no complaints. hahaha
Overall, this book was action packed with great pacing and wonderful characters. I adored every moment of it! There was no point at which I thought the story was slow or unreasonable. Ashley Poston could go so many places with this world. Take me there!!! haha
- Overall Rating: 4 Stars
- Plot: 4 Stars
- Character Development: 5 Stars
- Dialogue: 3 Stars
- Writing: 4 Stars
I would recommend this to anyone that enjoys YA and anyone that enjoys Fantasy. Well crafted and a good book closure with outstanding questions.
Happy reading!!
~Ash
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