Carving Shadows into Gold (Forging Silver into Stars #2)
Brigid Kemmerer
Bloomsbury USA Children’s
Published January 28, 2025
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About Carving Shadows into Gold
Dangerous magic. Fateful choices. Broken promises.
The King’s Courier Tycho has made a treacherous bargain. Now beholden to the magical scraver who saved King Gray’s life, one false move could end everything.
Jax escaped his life in Briarlock and traveled with Tycho to Emberfall. But life outside his small village brings unexpected challenges–and unlikely adversaries.
After years of hating the royal family and their magic, Callyn never expected to be at the Queen’s side, with magic on her fingertips. But at the royal court, she can’t trust anyone–including the man she thought she loved.
Cast apart, Tycho, Jax, and Callyn must learn to wield the magic that is dividing their kingdom. As the magical scravers attack from the north and the king’s rivals gain strength, time is running out.
War is looming. Love is tested. And magic could be the only answer. . .
My Review
The second book in the Cursebreakers series spinoff continues with the story of Tycho (King Grey’s courier), Jax (a blacksmith), and Callyn (one of Grey’s daughter’s ladies-in-waiting). I think it picks up pretty soon after Forging Silver Into Stars, the first book in the series, leaves off, with Tycho and Jax heading to Emberfall and Callyn settling into her new life as a lady’s maid.
I think all the characters are supposed to be eighteen or nineteen, so this reads more like a crossover book (adult fiction with crossover appeal to teen readers) than a young adult novel. All three characters have full-time work roles and are responsible for themselves as adults.
I like all three point-of-view characters, and I enjoy that this story is Cursebreakers adjacent, with scenes involving Grey, Lia Mara, Rhen, and Harper. Some of the events in the books have soured me a bit on Grey as a character, so at times, it was hard for me to feel the admiration that I thought I was supposed to feel for him.
The romance between Jax and Tycho develops more, and the plot leaves room for them to pine for one another. I like that the story allows Tycho to examine how he avoids connection with people and why he makes those choices. Callyn also experiences some romance. I appreciated how that part of the plot revealed that things aren’t always what they seem.
This book made me want to reread A Curse So Dark and Lonely. The structure of retelling a fairytale in that book felt so compelling when I read it. I think I want to revisit that feeling again– the fantasy landscape and romance with the added fairytale elements.
Content Notes
Recommended for Ages 16 up.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used somewhat infrequently.
Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing. A couple of scenes include explicit sexual contact.
Spiritual Content
Some characters have the ability to perform magic. In certain circumstances, magic can be used to control others, which causes a lot of fear. Scravers are humanlike with wings, sharp claws, and long fangs. They have their own magic.
Violent Content
Situations of peril. Battle scenes in which people sustain serious or fatal injuries. Soldiers spar with one another. One higher-ranking soldier repeatedly injures someone who is trying to learn to defend herself. While a couple of characters appear shocked or dismayed by this behavior, nobody calls it out as abusive. For a while, the solution seems to be to magically heal the character’s wounds, and then she returns to get beat up the next day.
There are a couple of vague references to sexual assault that happened to one character long before the story began. If this is the only book you read, you might not even know what they were discussing because it’s pretty vague. If you remember conversations from earlier books about this character, you would know what they were referring to.
A character kisses someone without consent, and there’s a moment when the character worries that the kisser won’t stop. It doesn’t go further, and the person apologizes for misreading the situation and for not asking for consent before kissing.
Drug Content
Characters drink alcohol. Some get drunk and do regrettable things.
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