Heart of the Sun Warrior, by Sue Lynn Tan, is the sequel to her masterful debut Daughter of the Moon Goddess. In it, Xingyin, Liwei, Wenzhi, and many of the other characters from the first book face new dangers as political instability threatens the Celestial Kingdom and new evils emerge.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess was easily one of my favorite reads all year, so I was really looking forward to this book. That book had a wonderfully crafted plot and world, compelling characters, and was simply amazing.

I wish that I could say the same for its sequel.

The best thing about this book is easily the characters, though even those pale in comparison to themselves in the first book. Xingyin is wonderful and I love her, though I didn’t like her as much here as in the first book. She seems less self-sufficient, weaker, and overall less herself. Liwei and Wenzhi continue to be great, but I also feel like they aren’t given much personality in the sequel. I still love all of them, just not as much as I did in the first book.

The actual quality of writing continues to be superb. Tan’s prose is compelling and readable, and Xingyin’s point of view is rendered extremely well.

My largest issue is that the plot feels far too disjointed. There are story threads that are important in the first third of the book but have no real bearing on the rest of it, while the central plot never really feels developed enough. I had some trouble understanding why certain events were happening, and there were quite a few side-plots that took up a lot of page time but simply weren’t that compelling or relevant.

Additionally, I didn’t appreciate the return of the love triangle, which I thought had been resolved in the first book. I never liked Wenzhi that much, so to have to deal with Xingyin’s feelings for both of the love interests again felt tiring and like it was completely ignoring the events of Daughter of the Moon Goddess.

Additionally, the ending simply did not live up to expectations for me. It felt underwhelming, out-of-character, and somewhat inconsistent with the expectations and characterizations built up over the duology.

Overall, despite having really high expectations for this book, and having adored Daughter of the Moon Goddess, I honestly cannot give Heart of the Sun Warrior any more than 3/5 stars. Honestly, I would probably recommend that people just stop reading after the first book; the story wraps up reasonably well, and it truly is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time; the sequel, unfortunately, just doesn’t live up to the legacy of its predecessor.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.