Book Review: Spin the Dawn

[Vanessa Tilley]

Title: Spin the Dawn
Author: Elizabeth Lim
Series: The Blood of Stars
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Summary
Spin the Dawn is a fantastic retelling of Mulan that is full of magic, mythical beings, adventure, and some romance.

Spin the Dawn follows our heroine Maia who works as a tailor under her father. After the death of her mother, Maia's father has a breakdown so the family moves to a new city along the coast. Sadly, shortly after moving, Maia's three brothers fight in the war where the oldest two, Fenlei and Sendo, are killed in battle and the youngest brother, Keton, comes home unable to walk. One day, Maia's father is asked to go to the court to serve as the Imperial tailor but her father is not able to sew like he once could. Maia, seeing a chance to help take care of her family, dresses as her brother Keton to take her father's place because women are not allowed to run shops or be tailors. Once Maia arrives, she discovers that there is actually a competition between eleven other men to become the Imperial tailor. While competing, Maia catches the attention of the Emperor's enchanter and they end up going on a dangerous and seemingly impossible journey to finish the final task for competition.

Thoughts:
Elizabeth's writing style is incredible. She gives the reader such vivid descriptions of everything from the world to the amazing clothes Maia creates. I totally want Maia to create a dress for me with her magic scissors. I mean I want all of those last three dresses Maia made. I want the blood of stars dress ASAP!!

Elizabeth has also created such well-developed characters that you get to see how they really think and what makes them ticks. I admire and relate to Maia's devotion to her family and doing anything to help them even doing something that will bring about her death if she is discovered. Maia is a very determined and creative which you constantly see with each challenge thrown at her. I also love the Emperor's enchanter Edan. Edan is a bit of a mystery but it is so fun watching him interact with Maia. They're banter is hilarious and their slow growing romance is so perfect! I really am intrigued by Lady Sarnai and I hope we learn more about her in the second novel.

The action in the novel makes it very hard to put down. I enjoyed seeing all the interesting challenges the tailors had to complete and then the dangerous journey Maia and Edan take was just fantastic! The chapters are a reasonable length so if you did have to put it down you don't have to stop in the middle of a chapter.


Spin the Dawn is just INCREDIBLE and I HIGHLY recommend this book if you enjoy strong female leads, magic, or fairy tale retelling.