Description:

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

• *

This is not that world.

• *

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is--and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, November 2012: Never fear, fans of Daughter of Smoke & Bone--Days of Blood & Starlight is just as good, if not better. Picking up a few months after the end of Daughter, Laini Taylor’s epic sequel finds Karou in the middle of the desert, tormented by memories of Akiva and creating an army to avenge her people. The drama runs high as the war between the angels and the chimera begins to take on a life of its own, and Karou begins to understand that her actions may have dire consequences. Taylor’s writing is full of energy and imagination, creating a world so vivid, you’ll swear you’ve been there, and characters you feel you know as well as your friends. The last third of the book demands your full attention, leaving no time to breathe between sentences and ending on a cliffhanger so big, you’ll wonder how on earth you can wait for the third installment. --Caley Anderson

From School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up-Rebellion foments in secret places in this complex sequel to Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Little, Brown, 2011). The battle between chimaera and seraphim moves from one world to another as estranged, star-crossed lovers Karou and Akiva struggle to stem the rising tide of annihilation embraced by their respective leaders. While Karou attempts to resurrect the chimaera army in a remote Moroccan kasbah, in a parallel world Akiva desperately seeks to atone for his past by warning civilians fleeing the advancing seraphs. Occasionally overwrought language is leavened by humor supplied by Karou's human friends, Zusana and Mik, who arrive at the kasbah and make unlikely places for themselves among the resurrected chimaera. The dream of peace cherished lives ago by Karou and Akiva achieves a shaky foothold when chimaera soldiers and seraph rebels reluctantly unite to battle the greater evil: Jael, the psychopathic new emperor of the angels, who is poised to invade the human world in his search for powerful weapons. Assassinations, betrayals, and revelations drive the plot through decoratively ornate prose that sometimes slows the pace, but deepening characterizations anchor the action, and the emotional and political stakes are higher. Multiple worlds teeter on the edge of apocalypse, unaware that a curious magic is reaching out from past exile to affect the present. The rising tension of the coming battle overtakes the unexceptional unrequited love story to make this a suspenseful, satisfying sequel.-Janice M. Del Negro, GSLIS Dominican University, River Forest, ILα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.