Kerstin Hall’s debut novel is a stunning adult dark fantasy filled with brutal magic, cannibal nuns, and a corrupt government willing to do whatever is necessary to maintain control.
Elfreda Raughn never wanted to be part of the Sisterhood. But like those before her, she was born into it. Now, she eats her mother’s flesh to preserve her magic and maintain the Pillars that keep their city floating over the dead world below. But what really terrifies Elfreda is the ritual to continue the bloodline. Once she gets pregnant the countdown to martyrdom begins. And the monthly ritual isn’t one she can easily escape.
Desperate for options, Elfreda jumps at the chance to join a group of rebels who believe there is a better way. As their spy, she discovers more secrets and conspiracies than she ever dreamed possible. Including one about her. The closer she gets to the truth, the more her enemies close in trying to silence her once and for all.
To put it succinctly, Star Eater is a stunningly beautiful nightmare. It’s dark and gory, filled with vivid hallucinations that weave into the book’s reality making it difficult to know what’s real and what isn’t. This blurred line makes the story feel like a lucid dream, made even more surreal by the way Hall expertly weaves all five senses into her writing. This isn’t a book you simply read, it’s one you experience.
One of the things Hall does so fantastically throughout the novel is take elements that are easily recognisable from our world and adding facets of the unknown to them. This builds a lush background for the fantastic, but it serves to keep us off-kilter. Throughout the novel it’s easy to get wrapped into believing Elfreda lives in what could be any Victorian city in any fantasy novel. But right when we feel comfortable, Hall shakes the ground beneath our feet. It’s this very act of firmly rooting us in a world we are familiar with that allows Hall to push us into the extraordinary in so many other ways.
Elfreda is part of the Order. A sisterhood of nuns that inherit magic through eating their mother’s flesh. This magic creates lace, a sort of spiderweb type substance that can be used to hold people in place but is largely used to capture Haunts—men who have been infected with magic and turn into zombie like creatures with endless hunger. This infection is sexually transmitted, which is dark on its own. But couple that with the fact that in order to continue the Sisterhood, they have to get pregnant, and things get even darker.
Rather than infect innocent men, the Order simply keeps the Haunts they capture in a prison where they’re used for the carefully controlled monthly ceremonies. The implications of body autonomy go both ways here. The men are manipulated magically, and the nuns aren’t given much of choice in the matter either. It’s a grim reality that highlights the way power of this matriarchal society is abused on multiple levels.
Elfreda hates the ceremony and is terrified of becoming pregnant. Choice isn’t an option for her or any of the nuns. They’re expected to reproduce, to be martyred, to continue the power the Star grants them. And there is nothing they can do about it. The nuns may be the ruling class in this society, but very few of them have control over anything, including their own bodies. They’re tested regularly to ensure they aren’t doing anything to prevent or end a pregnancy, and though they’re provided counselling for the trauma, they are never released from it. It’s a brutal condemnation of power and how easily it is abused in order to be maintained.
This searing indictment on how twisted and rotten the heart of the Order is, becomes clearer as Elfreda learns more of their secrets and the truth of their history. Power corrupts and absolute power mutates into something monstrous. Since the Sisterhood is essentially a religion, complete with practiced rituals to appease the Star, they use fear to subjugate the entire population. Hall gives us an interesting glimpse into how mythology can be perpetuated and forgotten at the same time, underlining how even the tenets of faith can be rewritten by the victors. Most of the Order is willing to do anything to maintain their power, even when presented with hope for a different reality. At what point does belief turn into fanaticism? Hall doesn’t give us the answer, but she does offer the question for the reader to ponder.
Hall paints a world built to show us how complex and complicated our own world is. On the surface, Haunts are the only monsters. But in fact, Star Eater is filled with them. Some are the Haunts, the men infected with magic, creating an endless blood-thirsty hunger for lace. Some are regular people pushed to hatred through an oppressive regime. And some are the more frightening variety. The ones we see in government today, grabbing power and letting it poison them until little of their humanity remains. This may be set in a far different world than the one we live in today, but the core is so similar it’s terrifying.
This grim realism makes the tension palpable throughout the book. The more we learn with Elfreda, the more heartbreaking her reality becomes. And the higher the stakes get. Every scene is filled with some sense of dread and foreboding, and Hall’s ability to bring lurid dreamscapes to life keeps the reader constantly off-balance, never knowing what to expect next. It serves the plot well, propelling us through the pages and into an explosive but startlingly quiet end.
Star Eater is not going to be every reader’s cup of flesh. It’s violent and gory, filled with dark and heavy themes, and readers should familiarise themselves with the content warnings before proceeding. It falls firmly in the horror and dark fantasy spectrum and will appeal to those readers. There is a lot of body horror and graphic imagery used to delve into grief, regret, fear, and loss. It’s horrifying and tender, exposing the complicated nuance of life in wildly imaginative ways.
But this layered approach means that Hall doesn’t hold the reader’s hand through the story. There are some clues to how the world operates along with the unfolding mystery that are incredibly subtle. They can be easy to miss or misunderstand. However, the lush descriptions and intense imagery encourage a closer read. This is a book to fall into completely and entirely, and fans will find new perspectives and details to revel in with every read through.
Star Eater is described as “a phantasmagorical indictment of hereditary power” and it absolutely lives up to every word. It explores power and how power corrupts, but at its core, this is a book about how to choose your own life in a world that wants to rip choice away entirely. It’s a powerful debut bringing a strange, twisted lucidity to the dark fantasy genre.
Star Eater is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of June 22nd 2021.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
All martyrdoms are difficult.
Elfreda Raughn will avoid pregnancy if it kills her, and one way or another, it will kill her. Though she’s able to stomach her gruesome day-to-day duties, the reality of preserving the Sisterhood of Aytrium’s magical bloodline horrifies her. She wants out, whatever the cost.
So when a shadowy cabal approaches Elfreda with an offer of escape, she leaps at the opportunity. As their spy, she gains access to the highest reaches of the Sisterhood, and enters a glittering world of opulent parties, subtle deceptions, and unexpected bloodshed.
A phantasmagorical indictment of hereditary power, Star Eater takes readers deep into a perilous and uncanny world where even the most powerful women are forced to choose what sacrifices they will make, so that they might have any choice at all.
