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Dance of the Sibling Suns #2
To Burn All Belief
Seeing is not believing when your eyes belong to them.
As the newly risen and fiercely determined Head of the Agency, Grim must unite the squabbling factions of Liwokin to save the city from the evolving Benefactor threat. But bad blood runs deep in the city and Grim struggles with his own descent into madness. How can he save his home when he’s not even certain he can save himself?
Lorelay returns home to the capital of the Bright Empire, where she must convince the future Emperor to aid the Agency in the fight against the infested. With the Emperor's interest piqued by her beauty and wit, she traverses a dangerous game of politics and passion — all while struggling with the grief of losing her brother.
Garret and Sentyx journey to the exotic Peeker Mounds hunting for Prost, the insidious stranger who unleashed Benefactors on the land. Garret needs all the help he can get while they track their quarry, but he also must tread cautiously. A Skardwarf cannot be trusted. Betrayal is only a matter of time. The only question who will betray whom first?
As characters’ paths converge and the future of the Bright Empire hangs on the actions of Grim and his allies, the stage is set for a symphony of war and intrigue in the Second Dance of the Sibling Suns.
As the newly risen and fiercely determined Head of the Agency, Grim must unite the squabbling factions of Liwokin to save the city from the evolving Benefactor threat. But bad blood runs deep in the city and Grim struggles with his own descent into madness. How can he save his home when he’s not even certain he can save himself?
Lorelay returns home to the capital of the Bright Empire, where she must convince the future Emperor to aid the Agency in the fight against the infested. With the Emperor's interest piqued by her beauty and wit, she traverses a dangerous game of politics and passion — all while struggling with the grief of losing her brother.
Garret and Sentyx journey to the exotic Peeker Mounds hunting for Prost, the insidious stranger who unleashed Benefactors on the land. Garret needs all the help he can get while they track their quarry, but he also must tread cautiously. A Skardwarf cannot be trusted. Betrayal is only a matter of time. The only question who will betray whom first?
As characters’ paths converge and the future of the Bright Empire hangs on the actions of Grim and his allies, the stage is set for a symphony of war and intrigue in the Second Dance of the Sibling Suns.
- GenresFantasyHigh Fantasy
602 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 4, 2024
5 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Joshua Scott Edwards
4 books41 followersJoshua Scott Edwards lives in Lansdale, PA with his wife, Rachel. He received an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rowan University, only afterward discovering that his true passion is for storytelling. Sadly, the topic was not covered in the engineering curriculum. By day, Joshua writes software to pay the bills. By night, he writes fantasy and science fiction stories, dreaming of a future in which he can do that by day as well.
You can find more of his writing at www.joshse.com, where you can sign up to receive monthly updates about ongoing projects, discounts for books and merch, and more.
You can find more of his writing at www.joshse.com, where you can sign up to receive monthly updates about ongoing projects, discounts for books and merch, and more.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 13, 2024
Why Garrett? 😩 all he wanted was a friend who wouldn’t betray him. It better get worked out between him and Sentyx in the next book or I’m goin to be fuming 😅 It was such a good read though! Kept me in my toes!
May 31, 2025
An exciting and ambitious follow-up to An Ocean of Others. The author’s worldbuilding and storytelling skills come through in full force. I couldn’t keep track of how many times I paused to think, “Josh, you clever bastard.”
The scale of the story expands greatly from AOOO, with chapters from three different POVs jumping us between different regions of the Bright Empire. I appreciated the switch to multiple POVs because my one hang-up about AOOO was that I personally didn’t connect well with Grim as a character. He remains a POV in this installment but the multiple POVs helped keep up the pace of the story.
We see more sci-fi elements here, in ways I didn’t expect. The story still sits in the fantasy genre, but the sci-fi elements gave the world an extra level of complexity that became one of my favorite parts of reading this book.
There are fantasy books where the worldbuilding simply creates a backdrop for the story. You don’t necessarily need to understand the ins-and-outs of how the world works in order to make sense of what’s happening.
Then there are books like this, where understanding the worldbuilding feels key to fully appreciating what’s happening on the page, from entire scenes to individual lines of dialogue. When I realized this, I was somewhat intimidated but also excited by the challenge of connecting all the dots, like: “Everyone describes that region as X, so why is this character describing it as Y?”
And there are a lot of dots to connect. Josh shows a great strength in managing the pieces of the series’ overarching mystery. Hints and clues are woven into the narrative, some more overt and some you don’t even realize were relevant until 100 pages later (or even an entire installment later).
I started putting together a theory as to the mystery around 20% in, but it was a satisfying slow burn. I never felt like “Well, I’ve done it. I know exactly what this is all leading to.” It’s more that my theory felt more and more promising as clues came up. By now I’d put money on it (maybe only like $10 but still lol), but the theory is still squishy in terms of the Why and How, so I have plenty of excitement left to see how Book 3 fill in the gaps.
The key characters have become more nuanced. In AOOO, I found each one lovable in their own way, a ragtag team of rascals. Here they’re all a little harder to love with the overall tone of the series getting darker. The challenges they each face feel more personal and targeted to aspects of their personalities/pasts that they’re resistant to coming to terms with. While I was often frustrated with some of the decisions they made, the decisions were consistent with their character development across the two books so far.
If I had one hang-up about the plot, it would be the romance subplot. A romance is hinted at in AOOO, but we see it play out here. I didn’t fully buy into the compatibility of the pairing, or at least not the depth of their feelings for each other. But it’s not a romance/romantasy book and the romance subplot *is* relevant to the overall story, so it wasn’t too much of a bother.
I enjoyed myself throughout, but the last 50 pages in particular were excellent. It was a rush of shock, intrigue, and sadness that left me feeling a bit empty, and I immediately wished I could fill that void with Book 3. Overall, I’m just so happy with my experience reading the book and the fact that Josh’s writing exists in the world.
The scale of the story expands greatly from AOOO, with chapters from three different POVs jumping us between different regions of the Bright Empire. I appreciated the switch to multiple POVs because my one hang-up about AOOO was that I personally didn’t connect well with Grim as a character. He remains a POV in this installment but the multiple POVs helped keep up the pace of the story.
We see more sci-fi elements here, in ways I didn’t expect. The story still sits in the fantasy genre, but the sci-fi elements gave the world an extra level of complexity that became one of my favorite parts of reading this book.
There are fantasy books where the worldbuilding simply creates a backdrop for the story. You don’t necessarily need to understand the ins-and-outs of how the world works in order to make sense of what’s happening.
Then there are books like this, where understanding the worldbuilding feels key to fully appreciating what’s happening on the page, from entire scenes to individual lines of dialogue. When I realized this, I was somewhat intimidated but also excited by the challenge of connecting all the dots, like: “Everyone describes that region as X, so why is this character describing it as Y?”
And there are a lot of dots to connect. Josh shows a great strength in managing the pieces of the series’ overarching mystery. Hints and clues are woven into the narrative, some more overt and some you don’t even realize were relevant until 100 pages later (or even an entire installment later).
I started putting together a theory as to the mystery around 20% in, but it was a satisfying slow burn. I never felt like “Well, I’ve done it. I know exactly what this is all leading to.” It’s more that my theory felt more and more promising as clues came up. By now I’d put money on it (maybe only like $10 but still lol), but the theory is still squishy in terms of the Why and How, so I have plenty of excitement left to see how Book 3 fill in the gaps.
The key characters have become more nuanced. In AOOO, I found each one lovable in their own way, a ragtag team of rascals. Here they’re all a little harder to love with the overall tone of the series getting darker. The challenges they each face feel more personal and targeted to aspects of their personalities/pasts that they’re resistant to coming to terms with. While I was often frustrated with some of the decisions they made, the decisions were consistent with their character development across the two books so far.
If I had one hang-up about the plot, it would be the romance subplot. A romance is hinted at in AOOO, but we see it play out here. I didn’t fully buy into the compatibility of the pairing, or at least not the depth of their feelings for each other. But it’s not a romance/romantasy book and the romance subplot *is* relevant to the overall story, so it wasn’t too much of a bother.
I enjoyed myself throughout, but the last 50 pages in particular were excellent. It was a rush of shock, intrigue, and sadness that left me feeling a bit empty, and I immediately wished I could fill that void with Book 3. Overall, I’m just so happy with my experience reading the book and the fact that Josh’s writing exists in the world.
October 29, 2024
4.5 Stars
So good! That ending though. Each book reads bringing me closer and closer to never trust an author! 🤣
Full review to follow.
So good! That ending though. Each book reads bringing me closer and closer to never trust an author! 🤣
Full review to follow.
June 5, 2024
To Burn All Belief follows hot on the heals of the extremely impressive An Ocean of Others. Things have changed up a bit here. Grim is now in charge of the Agency and that definitely changes the dynamic of the story. The questing nature and insurgent underdog status is now a thing of the past as we deal with actually running a giant organisation. The hand that produced the found family dynamics of the first book is also split up and scattered for most of the story - this is definitely more geographically spread than the first book. So the stakes and the scale have both increased. How does this affect the tone of the book? It does make it slightly more disjointed as we jump between multiple plot lines, but this is deftly handled and the plot lines remain interesting enough that one does not necessarily come to dominate. We also get to see and understand a bit more of the motivation of the other members of the Hand here, which definitely produces some added tension and interest.
The central concept, that made the first book so engaging, is still very much on display here - that of the unreliability of reality. That sense of an unreliable narrator is played into again - it is impossible to truly know what is real at any given moment. Every now and then a layer of perception is peeled back and we get a glimpse of something else, but with characters able to make their own reality and impose it on the world this is a constantly shifting base and it is just a fascinating conceit well exercised.
And going back to character motivation, we have an interesting look at the slippery slope between intension and result. Most of our MCs do want to do good, but then at the same time are forced into trolley problem type scenarios where there is no harm free option. And when reality itself is not centered, it becomes even harder to trust. The utilitarian idealism of for the greater good is a fascinating philosophy and it is explored in interesting ways here. The greater good may lead to betrayals of those close to you and I am intrigued as to the consequences of some of the betrayals here. It is a great hook to keep me wanting more of the series.
We also get examine a bit more of the world history. There are some fascinating allusions to previous 'dark ages', clever hints within the religious indoctrination and a general sense of foreboding that something bigger is at play here. The world here is only getting more interesting the deeper we dive. The religion (as implied by the title) is an important part of the plot and as we learn more about it, the way it has both a basis and how it has in places been twisted away from it provide an interesting allegory to real life.
I have been mightily impressed by both Sibling Suns books I have read. This sequel builds well on the promise of the first, with its dynamic shifts and scaling world providing natural progression. This allows the story to play with some new ideas, whilst keeping the framework of the themes kicked off in the first one. It also gives some impressive foreshadowing of things to come - I am genuinely excited about what is still to come!
The central concept, that made the first book so engaging, is still very much on display here - that of the unreliability of reality. That sense of an unreliable narrator is played into again - it is impossible to truly know what is real at any given moment. Every now and then a layer of perception is peeled back and we get a glimpse of something else, but with characters able to make their own reality and impose it on the world this is a constantly shifting base and it is just a fascinating conceit well exercised.
And going back to character motivation, we have an interesting look at the slippery slope between intension and result. Most of our MCs do want to do good, but then at the same time are forced into trolley problem type scenarios where there is no harm free option. And when reality itself is not centered, it becomes even harder to trust. The utilitarian idealism of for the greater good is a fascinating philosophy and it is explored in interesting ways here. The greater good may lead to betrayals of those close to you and I am intrigued as to the consequences of some of the betrayals here. It is a great hook to keep me wanting more of the series.
We also get examine a bit more of the world history. There are some fascinating allusions to previous 'dark ages', clever hints within the religious indoctrination and a general sense of foreboding that something bigger is at play here. The world here is only getting more interesting the deeper we dive. The religion (as implied by the title) is an important part of the plot and as we learn more about it, the way it has both a basis and how it has in places been twisted away from it provide an interesting allegory to real life.
I have been mightily impressed by both Sibling Suns books I have read. This sequel builds well on the promise of the first, with its dynamic shifts and scaling world providing natural progression. This allows the story to play with some new ideas, whilst keeping the framework of the themes kicked off in the first one. It also gives some impressive foreshadowing of things to come - I am genuinely excited about what is still to come!
February 11, 2025
Wasn't super sure at first. I really enjoyed the first book, but this felt a little aimless in the beginning, but once the story started to take shape, I was all in.
Unlike the first book, this one has multiple POVs which really helps to fill out this very cool original world. It's a little strange that one of the POVs is first person while the others are third, but the first person POV is the one from the first book, so it's understandable. There are 3 POVs this time, all members of the Hand 64 from book one, and one additional POV that only has a single chapter. Hopefully that character gets more in book 3.
Very enjoyable once I got into it. The last 15 chapters are jampacked with insane moments, and it sets up what should be an epic 3rd part to the story.
Recommended.
Unlike the first book, this one has multiple POVs which really helps to fill out this very cool original world. It's a little strange that one of the POVs is first person while the others are third, but the first person POV is the one from the first book, so it's understandable. There are 3 POVs this time, all members of the Hand 64 from book one, and one additional POV that only has a single chapter. Hopefully that character gets more in book 3.
Very enjoyable once I got into it. The last 15 chapters are jampacked with insane moments, and it sets up what should be an epic 3rd part to the story.
Recommended.
July 16, 2024
It was better than the first one. Less confusing but shorter. Sadly also a bit less surprising.
Mr. Edwards if you read this: please write under the chapters the persons names which POV it is, when it spoils nothing. It was most confusing in the first book and still is. If you do a second edition of the first book I really recommend including it.
Mr. Edwards if you read this: please write under the chapters the persons names which POV it is, when it spoils nothing. It was most confusing in the first book and still is. If you do a second edition of the first book I really recommend including it.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews