THE BOOKS DESK · ARC REVIEW
From Beneath the Moon
4.5 stars · Darker, bigger, more emotionally brutal—and apparently the moon leaving the planet was not enough stress for one book.
Okay, Monica. I have questions. Mostly: why do you enjoy hurting me? 😭
I went into From Beneath the Moon already attached to Akemi, Atlys, Leaf and this entire strange, musical, dangerous world after The Song of Sunrise. I loved Akemi’s magic, the found-family energy, the way music is woven into the world, and yes, I was already very invested in a certain man calling her Sunrise. Book two takes everything I liked about the first book and makes it darker, bigger and significantly more stressful.
The opening tells you immediately that this sequel is not playing. Akemi is trapped in the Underworld with Rollo, being coerced toward a marriage she does not want and brutalized while she tries to figure out how to survive. What I appreciated most is that the book never turns her captivity into romance and never reduces her to a heroine waiting for Atlys to come save her. Akemi watches. She lies. She plans. She resists. She fights. By the time escape becomes possible, she is already actively trying to save herself.
That distinction mattered to me.
And Akemi’s agency only becomes more important as the book expands. She is dealing with her Starwatcher abilities, fragments of memory and history, political fractures, the Underlings, the relic stones, the Watch, and—just a tiny little inconvenience—THE MOON IS LITERALLY LEAVING THE PLANET.
Excuse me?
The moon crisis is one of my favorite pieces of the worldbuilding because it is not just a pretty fantasy problem happening in the background. Its movement is weakening the separation between realms and connecting to the sickness spreading through the Underlings. Suddenly the Sun, Star and Moon Stones are not vague magical objects thrown into a prophecy; Akemi has an actual mission with consequences that feel enormous.
Then there is Atlys.
Sir. 😮💨
I liked their chemistry in book one, but I think their relationship is stronger here because the romance is carrying emotional weight beyond attraction. Atlys is sick. He knows the infection is progressing. He is hiding how bad it is because he is terrified of what he may become, while still being completely devoted to Akemi. She, meanwhile, is trying to save him while also carrying the fate of approximately everyone else on her back.
That tension between loving someone and knowing love alone cannot fix what is happening to them worked for me. The romance stays hot, but it also feels woven into the larger story instead of stopping the plot every time these two look at each other.
The found family also gets stronger in this installment. Leaf and Ramona genuinely surprised me. I loved watching that relationship quietly shift into something more, and I cared about it rather than treating it like background decoration. Castor continues proving his loyalty, and the expanding Starwatcher history gives Akemi’s story a much deeper emotional foundation.
And Esther’s connection to Marrow?
HELLO???
That is the kind of reveal I love in a sequel: something that does not just shock me for five seconds, but changes how I understand pieces of the story that came before it.
Where I lose the half star is the middle pacing. This book is carrying A LOT. Academy life. Solarball. Leaf and Ramona. Political fractures. Three relic stones. Starwatcher history. Atlys’s illness. The Underworld. The Jord. Rollo. Akemi’s training. The moon crisis.
I actually enjoyed the Solarball and academy material because it gives the characters room to breathe and lets the world feel lived in rather than existing only during catastrophes. But there were moments when I wanted the story to move faster because my brain kept screaming:
THE MOON IS LEAVING THE PLANET. ATLYS IS DYING. CAN WE PLEASE GET BACK TO THAT. 😂
And then the final third basically looked at that complaint and said, fine.
The Jord attack. The mission. Esther. The Star Stone. Akemi climbing the mountain alone. The Cave of Silence. Rollo showing up AGAIN because apparently this man has made ruining my peace a full-time occupation. Atlys in chains. Akemi giving up the Star Stone to save him.
And then the reveal that the actual Moon Stone has been hidden there the entire time.
Oh, and now they’re sealed inside the cave.
Because obviously there wasn’t enough happening.
Then Atlys tells her he is dying.
And Akemi tells him she knows.
MA’AM.
That ending is RUDE. Effective. But rude.
What ultimately pushed this to 4.5 stars for me is Akemi herself. There is an image near the end of her battered and bleeding and still climbing because the only direction left is up, and that feels like the thesis of her entire story. She is not powerful because nothing can hurt her. She is powerful because so much has hurt her and she keeps choosing to move anyway.
★★★★½ 4.5 stars. From Beneath the Moon is darker than book one, more ambitious in its worldbuilding, stronger in its emotional relationships and absolutely vicious with its cliffhanger. The middle gets crowded enough that the urgency occasionally dips, which is the only thing keeping it from a full five for me. But by the final third? I was locked in.
And yes, after that ending, I will obviously be reading book three.
I received an advance reader copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
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