Onnie and her brother have been sent for by their father who
is captain of a distant space station on an asteroid that orbits an
alien-inhabited planet. Onnie is
prepared to be bored until she meets the space station’s new chief medical
officer, Darragh, whose front of abrupt superiority cracks to reveal surprising
vulnerabilities. She determines to befriend him and find out what secrets
he is keeping about his early years. Meanwhile, tensions between Earthers and resident aliens
rise as some mysterious hostile entity begins to sabotage ship transports,
killing occupants and causing a crash into the space station suspiciously
similar to the accident that once took Onnie’s mother’s life. Onnie must learn about unconditional
friendship while dealing with inter-species harassment and navigating alien
diplomatic relations.
This story is reminiscent of Star Trek, since it is
essentially a space opera with mystery and an extremely slow-burn romance.
There are a lot of things to like about this book.
1)
The dialogue is full of delicious dry wit.
2)
The characters are interesting. Also, the alien secondary characters
are memorable and you’ll wish you could actually meet them.
3)
The believable conflicts are well-plotted.
4)
Although it leaves the larger series arc open,
the book’s conflict resolves in a satisfying way and doesn’t leave the reader
hanging off a cliff.
5)
There aren’t glaring science gaffes.
6)
You’ll find intriguing alien culture information
gradually and carefully rationed out
This story is YA with slow-burn romance as noted before. The
romance is pretty clean, with only one instance of ogling. Among the mountain of YA romances in
which the female protagonist is pursued by one or more unaccountably insistent
swains, this book turns that trope on its head, making the heroine the pursuer,
but only for friendship’s sake.
This makes for a very refreshing story with a quiet theme of
other-centeredness and unselfishness, which is incredibly rare these days. This being said, the relationship
will be stretched out over three books, or so the author has told me.
Who would enjoy this book? There’s a lot of relationship stuff, so if you like that,
you’ll like this book. There’s
also some action and adventure for those who enjoy explosions and mayhem.
I really enjoyed this book and look forward to more. I also read it out loud to my husband,
and he didn’t fall asleep as he often does. Once we were finished, he really wanted the next book in the
series to be out so we could read it too.
Final note: If the above review sounds overly rational and
restrained, it is because I have deliberately contained my inner SQUEEEEEEE in
order to make my enjoyment intelligible to others.
(This review was also posted on Amazon.)
