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Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

Young adult

Star Daughter

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Shveta Thakrar, on your first book!

by Shveta Thakrar

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Volume 0
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Quick take

Mythology meets astrology as a young star travels between worlds on an epic quest to save her father.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, 400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, Family_Drama

    Family drama

  • Illustrated icon, Magical

    Magical

  • Illustrated icon, Quest

    Quest

Synopsis

The daughter of a star and a mortal, Sheetal is used to keeping secrets. But when an accidental flare of her starfire puts her human father in the hospital, Sheetal needs a full star's help to heal him. A star like her mother, who returned to the sky long ago.

Sheetal's quest to save her father will take her to a celestial court of shining wonders and dark shadows, where she must take the stage as her family's champion in a competition to decide the next ruling house of the heavens—and win, or risk never returning to Earth at all.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Star Daughter.

Star Daughter

Part One

My mother is a star.

I am half—half of the earth, half of the heavens.

Cut me, and I might bleed silver. My skin is a rich brown, the exact shade of my human father’s skin, but my hair is long and thick and frosted like the moon. In my chest burns a fiery core that beats in time with the music of the spheres, their song deep and layered with dreams.

My mother is a star, one of many bright jewels who sing praises in the skies, who view us from on high. She chose to come down and make a life on Earth, but it wasn’t long before she yearned to go home. Nothing could truly hold her here—not my father’s proposal of marriage, not my birth into the world, not even our nightly dances together in the yard after devouring the dinner my father had cooked, when we’d flee the sink full of dishes to spin and turn, washed in the light of her family above. Our family.

She watches me now from her old throne, one more twinkle in the constellation Pushya, a figure as distant as the characters in the bedtime stories she once loved to tell me. In the evening, I see her clearly, laughing with her companions, radiant. Sometimes I catch rare glimpses of her during the day, when the sky is blue and everything is warm and golden, and it’s almost like having her with me again. Some nights, while the world slumbers, I raise my head to the coal-dark heavens and dream I can even speak to her.

Yet I can’t touch her anymore, can’t go with her to the park, can’t have her take me shopping or hug me or scold me or just be in the same room with me.

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Why I love it

To me, a transportive story makes you study your hands at the end of a read… it makes you wonder if some glitter from that world you left behind has somehow caught on your fingers. Star Daughter is that kind of transportive read. The mythic, South-Asian Otherworld Thakrar constructs is vast, imaginative, and an utter delight for the senses.

The novel tells the story of Sheetal, born of a star mother and a mortal father. She’s spent her life trying to suppress her celestial identity in order to live a “normal” life. But when an accident lands her father in critical condition, Sheetal must embrace her star identity and enter her mother’s world in order to save him.

This is the kind of questing tale that has the familiarity of a well-worn, beloved blanket, told in a voice that is pure poetry. I finished the book feeling almost jet-lagged, my senses so tangled up in the world Thakrar built that reality felt blurry by contrast. At a time when travel is limited, this book is the journey we need—and I hope you too close the book convinced that some stardust souvenirs will fall onto your lap.

Member ratings (1,100)

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Young adult
View all
The Wild Huntress
Ruthless Vows
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow
Dragonfruit
The Thirteenth Child
The Reappearance of Rachel Price
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love
Check & Mate
Divine Rivals
Foul Lady Fortune
Anna K Away
I Must Betray You
A Wilderness of Stars
Warrior Girl Unearthed
Bloodmarked
Instructions for Dancing
The Boy in the Red Dress
Color Me In
Not So Pure and Simple
Throw Like a Girl
Frankly in Love
Wayward Son
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
Anna K
Patron Saints of Nothing
The Kingdom of Back
Yes No Maybe So
Permanent Record
Full Disclosure
Oasis
Where the World Ends
I Have No Secrets
When the Stars Lead to You
All the Bright Places
Saving Zoë
Symptoms of a Heartbreak
All of Us with Wings
The Boy and Girl Who Broke the World
Past Perfect Life
There's Something About Sweetie
Again, But Better
Sky Without Stars
How (Not) to Ask a Boy to Prom
Night Music
Shout
The Deceivers
Top Ten
A Million Junes
And We're Off
Salt to the Sea