HEART OF IRON & SOUL OF STARS BY ASHLEY POSTON // spoiler-free series review: an action-packed sci-fi Anastasia retelling i didn’t know i needed in my life

I didn’t know that I’d be bringing you this post today but I actually just could not come and yell about this series that I have devoured over the last few days.

Really colour me surprised but it was a great time and I want more people to read these gems! I read these back to back, hence this is a double review as my thoughts are sort of intermingled. But without further ado, let’s get into the review < 3

Title: Heart of Iron // Soul of Stars
Series: Heart of Iron
Author: Ashley Poston
Page count: 467 // 400
Date published: 27 February 2018 // 23 July 2019
Genre: YA sci-fi

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Book One Synopsis:

Seventeen-year-old Ana is a scoundrel by nurture and an outlaw by nature. Found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09, Ana was saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09—one of the last remaining illegal Metals—has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him.

Ana’s desperate effort to save D09 leads her on a quest to steal the coordinates to a lost ship that could offer all the answers. But at the last moment, a spoiled Ironblood boy beats Ana to her prize. He has his own reasons for taking the coordinates, and he doesn’t care what he’ll sacrifice to keep them.

When everything goes wrong, she and the Ironblood end up as fugitives on the run. Now their entire kingdom is after them—and the coordinates—and not everyone wants them captured alive.

What they find in a lost corner of the universe will change all their lives—and unearth dangerous secrets. But when a darkness from Ana’s past returns, she must face an impossible choice: does she protect a kingdom that wants her dead or save the Metal boy she loves?

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SERIES STAR RATING: (4.5 out of 5 stars)

Are you proud of me? Because I’m proud of me. In the words of my child D09, it has been approximately 123456789 days since I read a sci-fi and I’m honestly a loser. Shame on me for falling off the wagon for so long.

Wowza I FLEW through these books at the speed of light… ha get it? Back on my space puns friends and I’m not stopping.

Ugh I also just LOVE Anastasia and I’m sceptical of all of you who are rating this 3 stars… did we read the same book folks? Because I thought these books were a blast and you are just wrong. Adventure? Check. Romance? Check. Spacey goodness? Check. Robot humour? CHECK! It’s all there and we had a great time.

Before this, I had only read Geekerella which I enjoyed, but I read and ADORED The Dead Romantics so I obviously needed to catch up. I remember not loving the YA contemporary writing, but I LOVED her sci-fi writing in this series. It was easy to follow along and I could see all the spaceship zooming and cyborg explosions. It had just enough description and some really stunning cosmic descriptions and I just really loved them.

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The action and pacing was absolutely spot-on and as soon as I was sucked in, the pages kept on flying. Man, I’m loving all of my puns today. Anyways, I do not kid when I say this was twist after twist after twist, and I think it balanced character development, world-building and action really well. Poston also handed the multiple POVs REALLY well and forgot how much I loved this formatting in the third-person!!! The writing was wonderful, descriptive and gut-wrenching and so easy to follow. Bar a few editing errors which I noticed in in the first book so oops. But I loved it nonetheless. The pacing kicked up a notch seeing as I whizzed through the sequel and we really had a joy of a time.

I’ve heard some complaints about the Anastasia aspect of this book, which is one of my favourite films, and I want to argue that it’s actually really clever. I liked how she changed Dmitri’s and Rasputin’s characters slightly, and then toyed with them quite a bit. There’s just enough of the retelling that the dynamics are there but unique enough in this space setting. Though I have never read Cinder, so I could be slightly out of orbit (ha get it?) with my comparison *hides*

The characters are just!! ugh my faves I love them to pieces. Siege and Talle are just absolute queens and we love two moms. I loved the new characters also in the sequel, which can be hard but they were a great addition to the cast. I was LOVING Robb and Jax, omg they are so adorable and I was FEELING THINGS FOR THESE GAYS!!! Di’s story was a lot but the author did a stunning job with my precious child. Love a friends to lovers *cries in mechanics*. Ana is my absolute babe and I will protect her at all costs!!!! Ms Poston is a master at adorable romance and I still have hearts in my eyes btw. Never thought I’d be obsessed with a robot being in love with a human but they have my whole heart. Love our side gays also, stunning babies!!!

The sequel and I truly had an asteroid blast of a time and I would love to keep flying on a skysailer in this spacey world! Seriously, I read this chunky book in like 3 days and I love that for me. I actually don’t have all that much to say about this sequel. It withheld everything I loved about book 1 plus some higher stakes and more angst and you’ve got yourself a spit-spot duology finale. Seriously bummed there aren’t more books *screams into eternity*

I also loved how the Anastasia retelling was still sprinkled in here and there throughout the sequel. Since there is no Anastasia 2, the book doesn’t have a core text to work with, but the author made it wholly unique whilst still using elements from its original and I loved it. I genuinely thought it was an excellent retelling and I’m still mad at all of you who say otherwise!

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Did I mention I’m sad there’s no third book? BECAUSE I WANT MORE!!! Let’s start a petition for another book, seriously *cries*

The ending was a lot and my heart was beating extremely fast. I WANT AN EPILOGUE. Okay, I’ll stop now. But there really were some great twists and she had me there for a second. I can’t think of a more perfect ending and I had the bestest time in this robot space world.

Overall, this series was a space blast of an Anastasia retelling that rocketed me to new planets and was full of robots that made me smile, all wrapped up in a star-struck romance I didn’t know I needed in my life. It ticks every Anastasia-Star-Wars-loving fan’s heart and I had the best time! If you’re looking for a series with rogue royals, glorious romance and galactic adventures, this duology is for you. I could not have asked for a better sci-fi series to fall in love with and you need to read it so we can swoon together please and thanks <3<3<3

“Home wasn’t always warm, and wasn’t always safe, but home was hers. And it was not this prison.”

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“Because Ana meant something. He felt it. Deep, burning, dawning like a sunrise. Ana meant something and he was not sure what to call it. But it was something, and it was expanding. It was a light.”

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“Jax had realized, in the moments he though Robb would bleed out in the cargo bay, that he wanted to fly into those eyes. he wanted to get lost in them. Just once. If they just opened one more time.”

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“You sound like a symphony of electrical currents,” she explained, and began to hum, as if in tune with it, and grabbed his hand to dance.”

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“It was as if he wasn’t seeing one star-but many. Too many.
A soul of stars.”

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“May the stars keep you steady and the iron keep you safe.”

HAVE YOU READ THIS SERIES? WHAT DID YOU THINK? WHICH WAS YOUR FAVOURITE OF THE TWO? ARE YOU AN ANASTASIA FAN? WHAT’S THE LAST SERIES YOU BINGED? I’D LOVE TO KNOW!