My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice Rating: 🌶️
Title: The Sun and the Starmaker
Author: Rachel Griffin
Format: audiobook (NetGalley)
Pages: 448 Listening Time: Approximately 11 hours 7 min
Publication Date: 2/17/26
Publisher: Recorded Books
Categories: Young Adult, Romance, Fantasy, Fairy Tale
Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Thank you to Recorded Books for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!
There once was a village so far north that most considered it the top of the world… and in that village, the Sun fell in love with her Starmaker. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Nature of Witches comes a whimsical and sweeping romantic fantasy.
Nestled deep in the snowy mountains of the Lost Range, the small village of Reverie endures on a miracle. Beyond the reach of the Sun, Reverie is dependent upon the magic of the mysterious Starmaker: every morning, he trudges across a vast glacier and pulls in sunlight over the peaks, providing the village with the light it needs to survive.
Aurora Finch grew up on tales of the Starmaker’s magic, never imagining she’d one day meet him. But on the morning of her wedding, a fateful encounter in the frostbitten woods changes everything. The Starmaker senses a powerful magic within her and demands she come study under his guidance. With her newfound abilities tied to the survival of the village, Aurora is swept away to his ice-covered castle at the mountain’s peak.
The Starmaker is as cold and distant as the dark woods, leaving Aurora to explore his enchanted castle with only an immortal rabbit for company. Yet the more she discovers about the sorcerer, the stronger their ruinous attraction grows, pulling her closer to the secrets he refuses to share. A deadly frost approaches, and Aurora must uncover what the Starmaker is hiding before she is left in an endless winter that even the Sun cannot touch.
Content Warning: death, grief
+ The narrator did a great job voicing all the characters in this story.
+ This is a beautifully told story that starts off with a fairytale. It definitely gave me Frozen + Beauty and the Beast vibes. Aurora loved the story of the Starmaker as a child, a Sun goddess who fell in love with a human, who then becomes the Starmaker. And when Aurora becomes the next Starmaker Rising, her whole world changes! I loved all the magical elements of the story. This story is set in a very cold climate and it felt like it from start to finish.
+ Aurora has a deep love for her family and she does a lot of things for them. I liked that about her. Her character goes through a few things and find that she wants to shine on her own, without being a bride until it was her choice to marry. She trains to be the next Starmaker with the current Starmaker’s help. The Starmaker (Caspian) is not a happy man, he’s a grouch and wants to be left alone – he’s been alive too long, lived with loss and pain and now with Aurora becoming the next Starmaker, he knows his own time was coming to an end. So they clash a lot because Aurora is so stubborn.
+ The romance is emotional, heartbreaking and bittersweet. Aurora and the Starmaker clash a lot, but being forced to train and live together, makes something more grow between them. Friendship and then love. There is a big price to being a Starmaker – it causes pain, it causes death, and yet without a Starmaker, a whole village could die. So there is big responsibility in the role, but the price that has to be paid is painful – as Aurora finds out. This is categorized as young adult, but there is one spicy scene which isn’t very graphic, but it is there. So I don’t know if this is more New Adult? Not sure.
~ I enjoyed the story a lot but Aurora was so stubborn and always fighting Caspian for no real reason except being mad at him because he revealed she was the next Starmaker and it changed her life. Yet it wasn’t his fault, it was the sun who chose her! He keeps telling her if she fights her role as Starmaker she will die, but she keeps fighting it and him. She took out her anger on him every chance she got…which was frustrating. I wanted her to grow up. So I didn’t totally love her character – there is growth at the end when she is again forced to face her responsibilities, but she is very stubborn.
Final Thoughts:
This story is told like a fairytale with magic, lovable creatures, and themes of family. I didn’t quite love Aurora all the time throughout the story but I guess her stubbornness is what kept her love with Caspian going. I still enjoyed her story about falling in love with the Starmaker, it’s beautiful and heartbreaking. This is a beautifully told and narrated story about love, magic, fate, sacrifice, stubbornness and grief.
Book Links:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Other Books I’ve Read From This Author:
Bring Me Your Midnight by. Rachel Griffin | ARC Review ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Nature of Witches by. Rachel Griffin | Book Review ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Past Midnight Book Reviews & More 
Uh oh…. Your last point about the extremely stubborn and combative MC but without proper reason… I hate that 😂 I’ve definitely gotten better at dealing with and even liking purposefully unlikable characters over the years, but only if there’s a point or a reason why they are the way they are. This doesn’t sound like it, if you’re saying she’s fighting him for no reason? 🫣 Aside from that though, this does sound really great (and that cover is stunning)! Maybe I’ll keep it on my radar but I definitely have to be in the right mood to deal with a character like that (and it’s rarely ever), haha. Great review, Yolanda!