Puerto Rican Elves?! The Last Sunrise in Eterna slayed!

Book babes and Fantasy folks know this blog loves a good fae and elf story. Last year, when Amparo Ortiz announced her next novel, Last Sunrise in Eterna, where a goth girl falls for a sunshine elf prince in Puerto Rico while participating in an magical exchange program, I knew I had to read it. 

And because Ortiz’s, The Blazewrath Games and the Dragonblood Ring were a great duology, I was super pumped for this book. And when I saw the cover for it I was sold.

Thank you, Netgalley for the advanced readers copy, and also big thanks to Amparo Ortiz for the psychical arc. (In December I won a contest for the arc, but I didn’t get around to reading it until later lol)

Summary: 

Sevim Burgos is the only teenager on the island that isn’t in love with the Elves of Eterna. Sevim isn’t interested in participating in Eterna’s annual exchange, where three chosen teens trade their dreams for one blissful week of weilding elven magic. But ever since Elves murdered Sevim’s father she’s been able to see through their lies-literally, she sees through their glamors. She longs for revenge on the elves who killed her father, but settles for selling the bodies of dead elves to the highest bidder. 

But Sevim’s body snatching isn’t so secret, and soon Prince Aro, the youngest elf prince, confronts her in an empty parking lot. Aro’s charming, and he has a sweet tooth, but he also kidnaps Sevim’s mother and coerced her into joining the exchange.

But as Sevim completes each challenge, she also begins to dream of things she shouldn’t know. Dreams that the elven prince rather keep secret. Sevim doesn’t scare easily, and soon she uncovers what’s going on in Eterna. Additionally, Sevim grows soft around Aro each day, but can she trust him?

Thoughts:

I enjoyed this read and the magical story that Ortiz wove. I really liked that this story has Puerto Ricans Elves, and they live on the island! There are a lot of folk tales in the world and in Latin America. But as far as I’m aware, Latin America doesn’t have legends surrounding faes and elves. And if you’ve been reading fantasy for the last few years, you know there’s many stories surrounding them. 

I saw a tiktok where Ortiz explained that Puerto Rico does not have a tale about Elves, so she invented them for this book, and she made them brown. And I loved that! The Faerie and Elf genre is big, so why not diversify these supernatural beings too. Additionally, the elves in this book, speak Spanish and English, just like me! I thought it was super cool when Aro and his brother Feyne switched between both languages in conversation because it made them feel real. Elves code switching between languages, just made sense. So many people do this! Elves as biligual baddies I can get behind that!

Yes Winx Club is also iconic for having such diverse characters too and for entertaining me as a kid.

I did note that the main conflict in this novel, mirrored Puerto Rico’s current gentrification/colonization conflict. Also Sevim’s father also dies of cancer because he lived in a city that was an abandoned US military base. And the radiation from those experiments  poisoned him and the other citizens too. Which is based in truth! I thought that was a brilliant way for Ortiz to root the land of Eterna in Puerto Rico. 

This book is told through the POV of Sevim, who spends this novel angry and confused. She’s mostly angered at being forced to participate in the exchange, and when her anger melts, she  develops feelings for Prince Aro. Sevim an interesting character because she’s a bit morally gray. She hates Elves because she believes they murdered her father. And she sells the abandoned corpses of these elves for profit. The money ends up helping her and her mother. But I was side eyeing Sevim for a bit there in the beginning. But Sevim pulls through in the end and has a wonderful character arc that I ate up! 

The end of this novel was fantastic! Not only does Sevim go through a wonderful transformation, she also becomes the heroine of Bonnie Tyler’s dreams. I am talking Heroine saves the hero. I am talking Sophie and Howl towards the end of the movie. Seriously, though the end of this novel has a blue shell level plot twist I don’t think any of us ever saw coming.

Now as much as I liked this novel, there was one thing I did not like- the romance. Specifically I wanted the romance to drag on a bit more. First we have Sevim, who hates Elves and finds solace in Victorian poets. Then we have Prince Aro, who is fascinated by humans and loves donuts. These two have such contrasting personalities that their love story intrgued me. 

I felt that Sevim begins to trust Aro rather quickly once she gets to Eterna. I thought that was weird because there’s a person who impersonates Aro, so Sevim has a big reason to distrust him, but despite that, she finds herself relying on him with ease. In return Aro also trust Sevim even after learning she’s a body snatcher and the only witness to his double. Maybe Aro is to much of a simp and has the personality of a golden retriever to hold grudges, but I did find it odd. 

This novel does tie up the romance between Aro and Sevim, and they get their happy ending. But the ending to the overall conflict and the story felt abrupt, and it left me wanting an epilogue.

Content Warnings: kidnapping, body snatching, mentions of cancer, colonization, dead children

Overall, I loved the way the fantasy in this novel was crafted and rooted in Puerto Rico. I hope we get even more Latin American fantasies featuring the fae. Or even more latin authors crafting their own fantasy stories rooted in the culture and people from Latin America and its descendants. There are some great Latin American Fantasy novels already out there, but it would be so cool to see even more of them.

until next time book lovers I got lots of reading to do and you can find me living in libros,

Gaby

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