Still the Sun by Charlie N. Holmberg is a 299 page novel published by 47North in 2024.
Genres: Fantasy (primary), science fiction, romance
Opening Line:
Something is missing.
Synopsis:
An ancient machine holds the secrets of a distant world’s past for two intimate strangers in the latest romantic fantasy adventure by Wall Street Journal bestselling author Charlie N. Holmberg.
Pell is an engineer and digger by trade—unearthing and repairing the fascinating artifacts left behind by the mysterious Ancients who once inhabited the sunbaked planet of Tampere. She’ll do anything to help the people of her village survive and to better understand the secrets of what came before.
Heartwood and Moseus are keepers of a forbidding tower near the village of Emgarden. Inside are the remnants of complex machines the likes of which Pell has never seen. Considering her affinity for Ancient tech, the keepers know Pell is their only hope of putting the pieces of these metal puzzles together and getting them running. The tower’s other riddle is Heartwood himself. He is an enigma, distant yet protective, to whom Pell is inexplicably drawn.
Pell’s restoration of this broken behemoth soon brings disturbing visions—and the discovery that her relationship to it could finally reveal the origins of the towers’ strange keepers and the unfathomable reason the truth has been hidden from her.
My Thoughts:
Well wasn’t this just a wonderful fantasy/sci-fi story! I was a little nervous going into this because I felt a bit lukewarm about the other book I’ve read by this author, but this was quite good!
Our POV character Pell is a short, dark, strong woman with a passion for tinkering with unearthed Ancient tech. She lives in a small community with no children, in a desert, next to an impenetrable pink crystal wall and an inaccessible tower, where the sun remains in the same place in the sky at all times, although there are cycles when a tone is heard throughout the world and mists descend. As you learn about this world she lives in you will have no idea what is going on, but just sit back and relax and all will be explained in good time!
One day a tall, pale stranger (there are no strangers on this world!) shows up at Pell’s door asking for her help. He and his companion have access to the tower and it’s filled with broken machines that they desperately need functional once more. Can she figure out how to repair them? While working on the machines, Pell begins to experience visions that feel like they might be hidden memories…She has fixed these machines before.
As I said, for a good portion of this book you have no idea what’s going on, and I got pretty annoyed with Pell and her associates at times (SO MANY TIMES she says, “I need answers, and you have them!” and they refuse to tell her anything or even explain that there is a good reason why they can’t tell her, so she gets angry and has a tantrum, over and over again ad nauseum). Additionally, I lost count of the number of times a character smiling is described as “his/her lip ticked”. And all the details about the machine repairs made my eyes glaze over.
But once we finally get some answers about what this world is and what is truly going on, it was absolutely epic. I will spoiler tag the rest only because when you start this book you’re supposed to be as clueless as Pell, but it was really quite wonderful. SPOILER, BEWARE! You’ve got full lore about different types of gods fighting a war against Ruin, and a plan to actually halt a planet from turning in order to imprison the enemy and stop him/it from destroying, well, everything. And demigods diminished by tendrils of the void. Epic! END SPOILER
I found this story to be unique and interesting and pretty rad once revealed in its entirety. I will now gladly read more of this author’s work!
Note: there is a romance, but any steaminess that happens is fade to black and not explicitly on the page. And if you’re reading this book BECAUSE you like romance, just know that the falling in love bits already happened before this book starts (and were just forgotten for…reasons I cannot reveal without spoiling things). As far as violent content, there is one pretty mild physical confrontation.
Jessica Crawford 