Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston (Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads)Also by this author: Geekerella
Published by HarperCollins on February 27th 2018
Genres: Contemporary, Fantasy, General, Romance, Science Fiction, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 480
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?
I was very excited to get an early copy of Ashley Poston’s upcoming Heart of Iron! I had been hearing a lot of buzz and I really enjoyed her last book Geekerella, and I was intrigued by this foray into sci-fi. This is touted as a retelling of Anastasia in space… that said, I’ve never seen Anastasia so I’m not sure that was a selling point for me.
The story itself was a lot of fun and while it had a lot of elements similar to many other sci-fi, Poston adds just enough of a twist to make it her own. I thought the fast-pacing really worked too, you’re thrown into the action from the very first page and it doesn’t slow down one bit throughout.
When Ana was younger, she was found drifting through space with an outlawed android named Di. The crew that found her has adopted her and taken her in as family. Years later, Di is glitching and she’s determined to fix him. The solution to the problem can only be found on a missing ship, and the moment she has the coordinates in sight, a certain Ironblood steps in and beats her to them.
Robb is searching for his missing father, and the coordinates in his hand are sure to lead him to his missing ship. That is, if he can hold onto them. Now, he finds himself on the run with Ana from the very kingdom he grew up in, and neither of them are willing to give up, no matter the final cost.
I found that a lot of the story itself was somewhat predictable, not in a bad way, but just in a way that I wasn’t really surprised as I continued to read. I did enjoy getting to know the characters, and if I’m completely honest, I’m most intrigued by Jax. I want to know more about it him and his race!
Poston has created an amazingly diverse book here as well, and it didn’t feel at all forced. I really enjoyed that especially and if you’re looking for anything conventional here, you’re not going to find it!
If you’re a fan of sci-fi, mixed with political intrigue, and don’t mind some familiar tropes you should definitely check this one out when it arrives on shelves soon. While I wasn’t blown away by this first in the series, I’m definitely looking forward to book 2.
About Ashley Poston
Growing up in a small southern town, Ashley Poston got her nerd on early in the fanfic community, and went on to earned a BA in English from the University of South Carolina. By day, she masquerades as a graphic designer, but by night she dawns her unicorn onesie and huddles down in a dark corner to stalk tumblr.
Sometimes, you can catch her lurking around in coffee shops where she reads copious amounts of fanfiction (shhhh, don’t tell her agent Holly Root) and plays a lot of video games. Somewhere between the fanfics and killing darkspawn, she writes nerdy books for young adults.
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