Keeper of the Lost Cities: Stellarlune by Shannon Messenger

Summary from Goodreads:

In this stunning ninth book in the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling Keeper of the Lost Cities series, Sophie and her friends discover the true meaning of power—and evil.

Sophie Foster changed the game.

Now she’s facing impossible choices:
When to act.
When to trust.
When to let go.

Her friends are divided and scattered, and the Black Swan wants Sophie to focus on their projects. But her instincts are leading her somewhere else.

Stellarlune—and the mysterious Elysian—might be the key to everything. But finding truth in the Lost Cities always requires sacrifice. And as the Neverseen’s plans sharpen into terrifying focus, it appears that everyone has miscalculated. The Lost Cities’ greatest lie could destroy everything. And in the battle that follows, only one thing is certain: nothing will ever be the same.

Review:

There are very few books I pre-order any more…This was one of them. I think I might have even  been waiting over a year for it….During the initial shut-down in 2020, these books were my lifeline. I’m so glad they exist. Are they great literature? Absolutely not. I feel like I find so many editing mistakes in them. But, reading them is like binging the ultimate guilty pleasure tv show. In fact, they’d make for some outstanding television.

I have to admit that my brain is getting older and even though I read all of this series not that long ago, I started this book and scratched my head. I had to go to Wikipedia and look up some past plot points and characters. Thank God for fans. There are so many fans and fan theories out there for these books that I didn’t even know about! After I fell down that rabbit hole, I was back in the game, and reading this was just a pure delight.

The beginning of the book was a little slow for me. Not a lot happened. It was a lot of back and forth between the characters with not a lot of action. Basically, they all argued a lot about the things that transpired in the previous book, and everyone seemed super upset at Sophie.  But, finally Sophie gets her groove back and things pick up plot-wise. By mid book, I couldn’t put it down.

I was a little put off by the lack of appearance of my favorite character. However, this was more than made up for (and then some). I’ve already gone back and re-read a certain scene a few times because I guess I’m a fan now….And of course this wouldn’t be the book we were all waiting for if it didn’t have crazy twists and turns in it, along with a nuts-o cliffhanger at the end. Let’s just hope it’s not another 2 years before the next installment. I give this one an 8/10.