Blog Tour: Between Burning Worlds by Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell

We are so excited to be rejoining the Fantastic Flying Book Club in order to be part of this blog tour for Between Burning Worlds, which is the second book in the System Divine trilogy. System Divine is a science fiction twist on Les Miserables, so I mean, if you haven’t read the first book yet, literally what are you waiting for? We did get a copy of this book as part of the book tour, but that did not affect our review in any way.

Book Info

Between Burning Worlds (System Divine, #2) by Jessica Brody, Joanne Rendell
on March 24, 2020
Goodreads

Laterre is on the brink of war. The Third Estate are rioting against the injustices of a corrupt system. The Patriarche, reeling from the murder of his only heir, makes brutal attempts to quash the unrest, while a new militant faction launches a series of deadly attacks.
Marcellus is now a traitor to his planet, willing to do anything to stop his grandfather from seizing control of Laterre, even if it means joining the Vangarde, a rebel group back from the dead.
Chatine is a prisoner on Bastille. Desperate to survive the harsh conditions of the moon, she becomes embroiled in the Vangarde’s dangerous attempt to free their infamous leader.
Alouette is a fugitive who has been lied to her entire life. Searching for the truth about her mysterious past, she soon finds herself hunted by the Regime for reasons she’s only beginning to understand.
But when Laterre is threatened by the emergence of a deadly new weapon, these three renegades must risk everything, traveling to the far reaches of the System Divine and into the white hot center of a planet ready to ignite.

Review

It’s always a little hard to review a sequel because basically everything is going to be a spoiler, but I’ll do my best!

Basically, the main takeaway here is that if you enjoyed the first book at all, I personally think the sequel is even better. When I was reading the first book, I definitely enjoyed the Les Mis elements, but there were some parts that took me out of the story because I was too busy trying to connect them back to the story or trying to guess what might happen in the book based on the original text. While there are still Les Mis elements in this novel, I personally felt the story took on a life of its own — and I mean that in a very good way. The backbone of the original text was still there of course, particularly in our main characters, but the world itself is so interesting and the science fiction elements so engaging that I felt like it was time for this story to grow wings. I was really pleased to see more of that in book 2.

I loved seeing our three main characters come together and try to basically save everything. There was a bit less of a love triangle feel, but I mean, the source text is Les Mis, so what are you gonna do. Also, I personally really loved the new characters that were introduced in this one.

After reading this novel, I’m upgrading the entire series to must read status for everyone! It’s a bit of French history, a bit of Les Mis and a bit of science fiction all stirred together in a beautiful way. I cannot WAIT for the third — and after the ending here, it better come quick!

What About You?

Have you read the first novel in the System Divine series? Did you like it? Do you have your eye on this one? Come talk to us in the comments! And don’t forget to check out the rest of the blog tour posts over at Fantastic Flying Book Club!