I've been wanting to dip my toes into reading sci fi more often and I'm really glad I picked this up one up as part of that. As someone who does not often read sci fi, I found this one to be a very accessible book from the genre. I thought the idea of being able to print yourself into new bodies was fascinating and thought O'Keefe did a really good job explaining this core concept of her world without using any level of info dumping to do it.

Plot wise once we get past the first few chapters setting up who characters are and what is happening kept me hooked and went by at a nice consistent pace. I didn't really find any of it particularly dragging at any point.

I enjoyed both of our main characters, Tarquin and Naira. I thought they were both well fleshed out characters and I especially liked watching Tarquin's opinions evolve as the story went on.

There is a subplot of a romance in this book as well which I really enjoyed. I thought it was well developed and I'm very intrigued what is going to happen with this storyline in the next books given how this book ended.

Overall a good read! It was missing that je ne sais quoi element that would have pushed it into a 5 star book, but I'm really excited for the next two in the trilogy and I think there's definitely potential for those two to end up being favorites now that the foundation of the world and characters are set and I'm into them.

This is the opening book of an epic space saga. While I imagine that some might say it gets off to a slow start, I actually found the early chapters to be quite fascinating and laid the groundwork for an incredible adventure. O’Keefe did some incredible world building. Scratch that…O’Keefe did some incredible universe building…from incredible tech to insane biology. The story has complex characters, intrigue, and some intense action. For a book that clocks in at over 500 pages I flew through it. Sadly it does end and now the wait for book 2 begins. 4.5 stars. I’d like to thank Orbit Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of The Blighted Stars.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R1Q8E5HJE56DK1/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

[Blurb goes here]

The first book in a trilogy.

Two Mercator spaceships, the Amaranth and the Einkorn, are transporting mining equipment to 6th Cradle, an Earth-like world. Their mission is to extract every trace of Relkatite from the planet, a process that uses the Canus fungus. A few hours after the Amaranth crew has awakened in their newly printed bodies, the Einkorn opens fire against them; no communications can be established between both ships. Have the terrorist group, calling themselves The Conservators, taken control of the Einkorn?

A handful of officers are forced to land on 6th Cradle, along with Tarquin, son of the infamous Acaelus Mercator: head of the most powerful family in the known worlds.

Fortunately for Tarquin, Exemplar Lockhart is by his side. An expert in combat, the bodyguard will protect him from everything 6th Cradle can throw at him. Tarquin Mercator chose, a long time ago, not to be an active part of his father's empire. He's a geologist who agreed to go on this mission, only to prove that Canus is not responsible for the destruction of worlds that follows the mining process: shroud lichen is. And he's yet to find a link between both species.

Exemplar Lockhart will protect Tarquin, even if all she wants is to kill him. He's the one man responsible for putting the real her on ice. She's Exemplar Naira Sharp, who was printed by unknown conspirators into the body of E. X. Lockhart.

Through the story, the plot will thicken, making this a very interesting web of conspiracies. Turning this Sci-Fi adventure into an Action Thriller. The science, for the most part, is novel and very interesting. Then there's the misprints: zombie-like creatures intent on stopping Tarquin and Naira from discovering the truth about the destruction of worlds, about the real enemy they'll face.

There are quite a lot of pages dedicated to a blossoming romance in this story, the author giving less than subtle hints from the very start as to whom might end up falling in love. Still, to me, that romance is a bit pedestrian. Except for the couple of times that it isn't. Nothing to frown upon, really, just impressively obvious from the start.

I loved the way Naira and Tarquin are portrayed, even if both characters' personalities are a bit on the intense side, especially Naira's, whose feelings for Tarquin are all over the place at all times.

Action starts from the get-go and keeps going, giving the reader little respite. A great thing, IMHO.

While quite a few of the secondary characters are paper thin, the story throws the main characters into chaos over and over again.

I really enjoyed this adventure, and I'm ready to read the following ones.

Thank you for the advanced copy!

I had a bit of hard time following the science behind the relationship between canus and the shroud. However, I did enjoy the book. The relationship between Naira and Tarquin was interesting and realistic. This is the third book this month that I've read that had the ability to tranfer your consciousness into a "print" body. I'm wondering if it's a new trend in sci-fi right now.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I can't wait to read the sequel. The Blighted Stars introduces the reader to immortality, space exploration, survival and the harsh reality between people who have power and who do not.

What kept me reading the book was world building and the relationship between the two main characters, Tarquin and Naira. Naira is a revolutionary and Tarquin is the son of Acaelus Mercator and the person who was instrumental to her imprisonment.

They find themselves trapped on a dying planet together. Without spoiling anything, the situation on the planet forces Tarquin to question his purpose, his family and his image of his father.

I received an advanced reader copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Humanity is running out of options. Their planet is dying, their dependent on a mined mineral, and the cradles (worlds that could replace their own) are dying swiftly from the mining processes. Naira Sharp is a spy and a Revolutionary stranded on Sixth Cradle with the son of her greatest enemy. Though he seems to be naive to his families role in humanities decline, she doesn't trust him.

Tarquin is a geologist stranded on Sixth Cradle where he came to prove that his families processes don't in fact cause the decline of their planets. However, as his time on the planet continues and his conversations with his bodyguard (a disguised Naira Sharp) deepen Tarquin is forced to question everything that he's know.

Meanwhile, a ship in orbit battles an unseen intruder who is attempting to take over everything. This same force seems to have connections to the perils that Tarquin and Naira are facing on Sixth Cradle below. Together, they will all uncover a plot that is bigger than anything they could've imagined.

I absolutely adored this book, and I am not a big Sci-Fi reader. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me shout, "hell yeah!" I found myself unable to put this one down as Megan E. O'Keefe simultaneously wove a Sci-Fi survival action plot and political intrigue novel around me. The Universe of the Blighted Stars was fascinating from the idea of prints (bodies) for your mind which allowed a form of immortality to the perils of a dying planet. When I was on Sixth Cradle I found myself recalling the more recent iteration of Lost in Space with some underlying Expanse vibes, but better.

Tarquin was a bit of the classic naive child of a ruler who has his perceptions challenged, but it didn't detract from the experience for me. He reminded me a bit of Ali from The Daevabad Trilogy. I think O'Keefe also did an excellent job of portraying Tarquin's knowledge as a Geologist while making it accessible. It didn't feel like I was in the middle of a science lecture whenever these details were presented, and they were relevant to the plot. There were also enough little characteristics that helped to make Tarquin is own version of the trope.

Naira was a great character as well. I appreciated how much she struggled with her own prejudices around Tarquin and the fact that he was the son of her enemy. You joined in with her frustration that things weren't fitting into the mold that she thought they should. Add in the detail of the disguise and not knowing how she ended up where she is, and you felt those struggles as tangible.

The antagonists in this story were terrifying. I don't want to say too much about them, but I legitimately had nightmares about them all.

My only criticism for this one is that there were a few chapters that felt disjointed. Specifically because it was hard to understand how they connected to the overall plot while you were reading them, but they did come to fruition at the end. I have so many theories that I want to discuss with other readers of this book and I cannot wait for book two!

The writing was easy to follow, and I found myself invested in the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for the ARC.

I really liked this book. I will start off by saying that although sci-fi is one of my favourite genres, I don’t tend to read it all that often so it was a nice change of pace to read this book.


From the very start, we learn that in this world, they’re able to print bodies and inject minds into them. This added a really cool dynamic with one of the POVs being secretly printed in someone else’s body. Also from the beginning of the book, there’s some sort of malfunction going on with the body-printers which added a zombie-like element to the plot and I loved that.

The book is mainly told in dual POV (Tarquin and Naira) with the occasional additional POV. I was always interested in the different perspectives and felt that their storylines and pacing were consistently good. In particular, the author did an awesome job at balancing the POVs of Tarquin and Naira. One of my biggest pet peeves is when characters make dumb decisions or decision that don’t align with their characters, at all, just to progress the plot. I find this is done a lot in other books and was happy to see that it didn’t happen in this one. Their decisions made perfect sense for their character and there was even some great character growth.

The main enemy is really fascinating and you don’t really know right away what exactly is going on. Things are slowly revealed to the reader, occasionally before Tarquin and Naira find out, especially with the info we gain from those additional POVs.

The plot went in ways I wasn’t expecting. It had a good mix of action and time taken for the characters to be established and explored. I was never bored. I will for sure be continuing on with the series and am even more interested in reading some of the author’s other series.

Megan E. O'Keefe wrote the space opera romance I didn't know I was waiting for! Our main characters, Tarquin Mercator and Naira Sharp are ideological opposites which is my favorite kind of enemies to lovers. Tarquin is the son of a MERIT (ruling families) and his family is responsible for the mining of relkatite, which is the substance used to power starships, bodily enhancements, and also the printing of new bodies for those who can afford to replace old bodies as they wear out. Naira Sharp was once the bodyguard of Tarquin's father, but she joined the Conservators, a rebel group working to stop relkatite mining from destroying planets.

These two are brought together after their shuttle crashes on Sixth Cradle, the new planet to be mined of relkatite. They discover the planet is already dead. Naira is wearing a different body and Tarquin doesn't know that she's Naira and that she hates him for getting her locked up and her neural map put on ice. The plot just explodes from there and I read over half of it in one sitting. I loved everything about these two and luckily book 2 comes out in September!

What I really loved in this book were all the human moments inserted with the non-stop action. These people are used to wearing different bodies, but these lives aren't taken lightly. Death is still a very real fear. Our villain is still a man who loves his family. He's not a one-dimensional mustache twirling villain. He does bad things for what he believes are the right reasons. Our main characters are on separate sides, but they still have to figure out how to work together. The plot really isn't anything new, but that didn't feel like the point of what the book was supposed to be about. I really loved everything about this series opener and I'm dying to read book 2.

Tarquin and Naira were really interesting characters through and through. The beginning just drops you straight into the action. These two characters are in a world where corporations rule everything and they come from opposing sides. Watching them interact was honestly the best parts in the book. That and there was some crazy technology where if you die they reprint your soul into a new body. It was quite Tripp. Was a really fun ride and anyone who enjoys scifi or enemies to lovers will enjoy this one.

With the interesting plot set up, not to mention a beautiful cover, I had high hopes for this one, so I’m sorry to say that it was just OK for me. The Mercator’s mine for a mineral called relkatite, which then causes a fungal outbreak that destroys all living things. Then there’s another mineral called canus, and one they discovered. These minerals, and others, are discussed multiple times by the geologist Tarquin, and it just felt way too much like a biology lecture. Some of them are introduced artificially to the environment, some of them occur naturally, and by the end I was pretty lost as to which was which. In addition, I think the book is a bit too long; there is a fair amount of repetition, not to mention a lot of wandering around this desolate planet.
I enjoyed Naira as a character, but Tarquin was really one-dimensional and rather boring.

Thank you to NetGalley & Orbit Books for this advance reader copy. All opinions are my own.

I loved the Protectorate Series by this author, so I was excited to read this. And it was goooood. It’s the first book in a trilogy. A woman is trapped on a dying planet with her sworn enemy, and things just get more complicated from there.

The book is told from different perspectives. It made me laugh, made me think, and pulled my heart out. It starts with action right away that grabs you. It’s a fast paced, enjoyable ride. AND, all three of the trilogy are already written, so hopefully we don’t have to wait long for book two. Fingers crossed!

It comes out today. I recommend it if you like action-packed sci fi. Thank you to Orbit and NetGalley for my copy.

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book!

Based on the description of this book, I was expecting a fun, action-packed, but predictable sci-fi book with some enemies-to-lovers thrown in. This book was not that. It was more and it certainly wasn't predictable. I was hooked by the end of chapter one and so intrigued by the technology in this universe and already more than a little bit in love with Tarquin. As a research microbiologist, I am so sick of seeing the evil scientist trope, so Tarquin's relentless determination to do good with his science and with his research was such a breath of fresh air. Naira, the other main character, is also incredibly well-written and just as fascinating as Tarquin. She has such a strong sense of justice and morality, but one of the things I appreciated about her character was that this didn't stop her from growing and changing. So often, characters with a seemingly rigid sense of right and wrong end up becoming exactly like the people they hate because they're so blinded by the belief that they are in the right. Megan O'Keefe could have very easily made Naira one of those characters, and I'm so glad she didn't. The relationship between Tarquin and Naira was the beating heart of this book and it had me feeling the full spectrum of human emotion throughout the book.

The plot is complex, sometimes to its own detriment. I sometimes had to stop and reread a passage, and sometimes I felt like I needed a study guide to help me keep up with the plot developments. However, once things started clicking and the book really started picking up the pace in the last half of the book, I was once again completely absorbed in it. I think some of this could have been helped by expanding on the technology used; I'm still not very sure of how printing and cracking works and the process of uploading (saving?) a person's neural map is a complete mystery to me. The twist in Tarquin and Naira's relationship completely took me out of the book because I wasn't even aware that was a concern. The Blighted Stars in incredibly fast-paced and full of amazing characters. I really can't wait for book 2 to come out.

I mention The Protectorate as a favorite sci-fi series frequently and I’m glad to now have another book to recommend to others as well. The Blighted Stars was so much fun and exactly what I needed before I start my deep dive into lots of fantasy books again.

This book dove right into the action just the way I like it. I like my heart racing and seeing how characters handle stressful situations in a way that gets me attached to them right from the start. Then I’m ready for a bit of a slower intro to get my feel for the setting and the variety of characters that we’ll be spending time with throughout the story. While there was a bit in the first quarter that did drag just a tiny bit for me, this was quickly alleviated with the next couple of chapters that had my head spinning with so many thoughts. From then on, I was absolutely absorbed by this book until I was finished!

I really liked the two main characters that spent time planetside throughout much of the book but there were also multiple other POVs to break those up that added really interesting details to the story. While I don’t mind POVs that stay separate all throughout, it is really fun when you can see so many connections between them all in the way the author has done here. There were so many details that started to stand out more and more as you progress through the book and understand more of what is going on, and all of a sudden, you wonder how you didn’t pick up on those things before!

One of my favorite things to do in a book is theorizing. I love it when we get bits and pieces that lead my thoughts all over the place and have me seeing conspiracies everywhere. O’Keefe gave my mind plenty of opportunities to run wild in this way. I found myself throwing up my hands, shouting out loud, and frantically switching to my Discord app to post my latest theory. It was so much fun in a way that I don’t feel about many books.

The relationships between characters was another favorite for me and I don’t just mean romantic ones. While there is some of that, and I have to say I really did like that one the most, I also loved seeing the familial ties that introduced so much anxiety to the story. Loyalty plays a big role in this book and I enjoyed seeing the various facets of that as well. While yearning for other people isn’t usually my type of thing, having that mixed with the issues of family and societal expectations, loyalty, and wanting to follow your own heart really ramped things up in a way that I was eager to read about. The fun banter between some of the characters was a great way to alleviate some of the building tension as well.

The last thing I want to touch on is the unexpected creepiness of this book. O’Keefe really knows how to ramp up my apprehension and make me feel like I’m right there with her characters. I was jumping at noises while I was reading certain passages and had to shudder multiple times after some descriptions. I’m a bit of a scaredy cat but she managed exactly the right level of heart racing and anxiety that I like while reading.

If you like high stakes, political intrigue, conspiracy theories, and complicated relationships in various shapes and forms, then this is the book for you!

A supremely creepy, action-packed ride with a lot of deeper ethical discussions at play that aren't quite developed enough yet.

It's difficult to review this novel without spoilers, but I have to start with saying that the atmosphere O'Keefe creates on this dying planet is absolutely sinister. With just a few words here and there, she paints the picture of a world in shadows, making every event that follows the opening crash even more malevolent. There are so many stories deftly woven into the survival story here, and each one is more of a twist.

While I did think the opening pages were hard to follow (we're thrown right into this world and right into a crash, so there's no time for a gentle slide into the new terminology and character names), once the dust settles we have time to adjust. Each character is distinct, though sometimes hard to keep track of, especially in the first 15% or so. This gums up the pacing a bit, because I had to go back and reread to remember who had what title, especially when talking about one of the characters who is in disguise. However, I was glad for the chance to figure out what was going on.

Speaking of characters- Naira is a strong, bold character with clear motivations and truly a beacon for the others. Her decisiveness makes this book strong, in my opinion. While we couldn't have the book without Tarquin, his personality was not quite as strong or clear-cut. The internal struggle- how to rule, with an iron fist or open heart- is touching, but hard to care about when there are THINGS roaming the dead forest. This novel does suffer from too many POV changes, and some of the more random ones felt like ways to just give the reader information without having to work for it.

Still, once we ease past the slightly jarring adjustment period, the mystery of this planet, of the shroud lichen and the misprints really sucked me in. That's where this book really shines- the battle between the Conservators and MERIT, who is right and who is wrong, the price of progress, and the sacrifices humans should (or should not) be willing to make to stay at the cutting edge. A creepy, horrifyingly realistic possible future that could await if we keep pushing and pushing. Even the concept of prints, putting your neural map into a fresh body, is terrifying in its implications, especially when from the beginning, someone is stealing a body that is not their own. Certainly food for thought in a very accessible way, and in an extremely entertaining way. The bigger picture unfolds in layers, and it's a great ride for everyone (expect maybe the ones on the dead planet ). Although there were some moments I was scratching my head at, I still enjoyed this, though I would have loved to go deeper into some of the other big issues that are introduced- like the idea of essential immortality- but I'm hoping that comes into play in later books in the series.

dying planets, extreme capitalism and monopolization of resources and power. rebels risking it all to fight for change. dangerous yet powerful technology. some serious family drama. sentient ai. sentient fungi. adorable emotional support robots. queernorm world.

“It is the dark between the stars that lets them shine”

The Blighted Stars is an engaging, action-packed space opera with deeply human characters, cool use of technology and science, body horror and and some of the best flirtatious banter I’ve read in a while. It’s also a commentary on capitalism, privilege, access, and environmental sustainability. I found the second half a bit draggy and also a bit inconsistent with the science and tech, but by that point I was invested, and the dialogue and character nuance kept me coming back.

5 ruling families control what’s left of humanity and the known universe. Earth has been destroyed. Humans have developed a technology to create neural maps and download them into printed bodies, or prints. A newly discovered mineral called relkatite powers this printing process and enables humanity to survive this way, but the mining process has a side effect that may be much worse than anyone realizes, and may be destroying earth-like worlds. Are humans willing to destroy the remaining habitable worlds to let them keep this technology? Is their drive to continue mining really their own, or are they being influenced by someone or something?

Things I loved:
-trans main character and queernorm world. In this future universe, humans have invented a technology that allows them to map their brains and upload into a “printed” (fabricated) body. Our main character Tarquin was a male born in a body that didn’t feel quite right, and because his family had money, he was able to be mapped and printed into a body that felt more like himself at a young age. In fact, all types of body dysmorphia or even just personal preference can be addressed this way, with people having “preferred prints” that feel right to them–as long as they can afford it. Future capitalism is just as dystopian as, well, current capitalism.

-cool technology and science. The first half of the book does an especially good job of introducing cool technologies, such as neural mapping and printing of bodies, pathways, or enhancements built into these “prints” to increase mental or physical abilities, mining technology and a mineral called Relkalite, sentient fungus, body armor that molds to your shape, a geology bot that doubles as an emotional support / anxiety support robot named Pliny the Metal.

-Pliny the Metal <3 calling this little bot out separately because I loved it so much.

-The dynamic between our two main characters, Tarquin and Naira. For me, the romantic subplot is usually secondary, and sometimes even a distraction for me. I'm lukewarm on really cutesy romances. In this case, it was just fun, and I found myself rooting for these two and laughing out loud, even when it bordered on cheesy. I totally fell for the banter, and it was just so well executed and enjoyable that I was emotionally invested before I realized it.

-Badass ladies and open-minded, emotionally mature characters

Things I didn’t love as much:
-The second half felt longer than it needed to be, and at the same time it felt like some big jumps in logic that were used to forward the plot but felt less natural or sensical than the very scientific approach laid out previously. I enjoy when a true scientific approach is taken in SFF, so when it was replaced by characters leaping to conclusions that would not actually be obvious or scientific given the information they should have at that time, it was a bit abrupt and disappointing to me. The world building was also great in the beginning, and seemed to shift more into “telling” than “showing” by the second half.

-I would have loved to see more of the sentient AI in the ship, and felt that was really superficially touched on, and not explained as well as I would have liked. Short story on just this character please :D

-THE ENDING. To be clear, I didn’t dislike how the book ended, although it was a bit heartbreaking; but I feel that it’s very unfair to be left on this ending without a date for the next book 😂 I'm going to be anxiously worrying about these 2 until then!

Overall I really enjoyed this, and I’ll be on the lookout for the rest of the series!

"WE CAN NEVER LEAVE"

(will post to IG soon, need a good picture! :) )

The Blighted Stars
by Megan E. O'Keefe
Science Fiction Space
NetGalley ARC

Naira Sharp has no idea why she is on a mining spacecraft, but she knows her job, destroy it before its owner destroys the world it is orbiting. But when something goes wrong, Naira finds herself in a shuttle with the survivors of the mining ship after its 'sister' fires upon it. Tarquin Mercator, the son of the man killing the planets he mines, is also on the ship. Pretending to be his bodyguard, Naira and Tarquin finds out there's a bigger conspiracy than mining planets for the minerals humans need to survive in space.

This is the first book in a series that takes place in the far future, where most humans are living in space because Earth and other planets like it are dead or dying after being mined for the minerals needed to make the space stations and ships. These planet deaths and the reasoning I don't feel are explained really well. More detail is needed, both with backstory and descriptions to make it mean something, as it is, it's blah and gave me nothing to feel for.

The characters were well created, and the back and forth between the MCs was entertaining as it grew from enemies to the start of a romance. And the plot was interesting enough, but the lack of descriptive backstory about how this all came to pass made it boring because there was nothing to relate to. This also includes the technology used to create the bodies humans now downloaded their consciousness to. I feel a lot was left out about these 'prints'; the history, and all of that stuff.

And as for action, there was some, but it wasn't the type that made you strangle the book to find out what was going to happen. It just did its thing.

Nothing about this story really grabbed me enough to be on the lookout for the next in the series.

2 Stars

The Blighted Stars is an action-packed space opera, and a fun book for fans of science fiction. The romance aspect is well-written and does not detract from the story. There are many sci-fi themes here, including some that are not advertised in the summary and I was pleasantly surprised to find. There are so many themes it is almost a detriment to the story, as there are many plotlines to follow.

In The Blighted Stars, humanity has achieved space travel and is in search of other Earth-like (or 'cradle') worlds. Earth has been completely decimated by a life-consuming organism which continues to destroy each cradle world while one of the big five galactic conglomerates mines it for a valuable mineral. A human life can also live much longer due to the process of uploading the psyche into a new body (or 'print').

The beginning was a little slow, and I wasn't really invested in the story until just about halfway point. The ending fell short for me, and felt a little rushed. However, this is the first book in a trilogy and I am interested in seeing how this story ends. Overall, I really enjoyed the characters, mystery, and the space opera immersion.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a heady mix of science fiction themes I really enjoy including stored consciousness (a la Altered Carbon), multiple bodies/one person (a la the Locked Tomb), evil corporate overlords/space royals extracting resources and hurting people (a la Dune) all with a gorgeous rebellion and climate emphasis (a la The Fifth Season). There’s even a kind of zombie plague thing (a la Severance or Zone One, kind of) and sentient technology developing annoying feelings (a la Murderbot). It’s like Megan O’Keefe took notes on all of the things I love in a book and threw them in a blender!

The plot is intricate. The worlds are detailed and there is crossing and double crossing galore. Although the blurb touts a romance it is maybe the slowest burn romance of all time and definitely not at all the focus of the plot of this installment. The two main characters have delicious tension but it feels a lot more like the vibes between Harrow and Gideon than a capital-R Romance novel where the relationship takes main stage, especially because the FMC has a role much like Gideon’s - she is tasked with protecting the MMC’s family (he’s basically a space prince) - and they do NOT “get along” for about half the book.

I did get heavier will they/won’t they vibes in the preview chapter for book two so I am intrigued, but quite honestly? I didn’t miss the romance at all. There was so much going on here that I was fully entertained without a main couple doing their thing (I know, I know, but I do read non-romance from time to time!!).

Recommended! This is the first book of a series I can’t wait to read more of! If you like any of the books mentioned above, you will love this. Gory and exciting with lots of intrigue and interplanetary politics.

The Blighted Stars is an action-packed, character-driven space opera that hooked me from the first page.

Tarquin Mercator is the son of one of the most powerful families involved in space exploration. Tarquin has never been interested in ruling the family empire; he would much rather read and pursue studying geology. However, his father has assigned him to monitor the mining of a new planet.

Before they even land on the planet, things go sideways, leaving everyone stranded on this dying planet, scrambling to find a way to start communications and get the shuttle working again.

Naira is among those stuck with Tarquin. She’s a convicted spy disguised as Tarquin’s bodyguard and is prepared to keep him safe, at least, until she can free herself.

I’ve been meaning to read more sci-fi, but I find most of the genre intimidating. But when I found out that this space opera was character-driven, I decided to give it a go. And I’m happy I did. Tarquin and Naira are the most fully fleshed-out characters, as they should be. I loved their easy banter with each other.

On the subject of banter, there is a budding romance in this first instalment. It doesn’t overpower the story, but it is there. At times, it is cute, and at others, a bit cheesy, but fun nevertheless.

The sci-fi itself was fairly accessible. In this universe, people can extend their lifespans simply by printing into different bodies.

This book is action-packed right from the first chapter and, for the most part, keeps a consistent pace all the way through.

I believe that the author has already written the entire trilogy, so hopefully, there’s not too long of a wait for the next book.

If, like me, you want to dip your toes into sci-fi, I’d say this is a great place to start. If you’re a seasoned sci-fi reader who enjoys a sprinkle of romance, you might also enjoy this novel.

Thank you to Orbit for the physical and digital copies in exchange for an honest review.

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