The Last Starborn Seer

As a sickness spreads through the world of Arcelia, a princess with forbidden magic joins forces with her realm’s sworn enemies in Constantine’s underbaked romantasy debut. Princess Leilani Stellarion has always been an outcast for her powers of foresight. When her ancestor charges her with a quest to retrieve the Starlight Staff and cure the Sickening that plagues her people, Leilani jumps at the chance to save her mother and delay her own unwanted marriage. As she and representatives from all four realms of Arcelia make the grueling journey to the peak of the Astral Mountain, Leilani learns there is someone who will keep her from success at all costs. To complete her mission, she’ll need help from an old political rival. Despite the initial complexity of Arcelia, with a glossary of its gods and historical periods taking up the first five pages of the book, the plot plays out as a straightforward fetch quest and does little to actually engage with the worldbuilding. Leilani’s repetitive, overly explained internal struggles and romantic woes take up the vast majority of the page count, leaving the side characters and initially promising plot points underdeveloped. Readers in it simply for the romance may be satisfied, but others will see wasted potential here. (Mar.)