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I had heard this title brought up on several different bookish podcasts and finally put it on hold last week. This is one of the best space books I’ve read since Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series and the two are now tied for my favorite. It has a tough as nails rich girl named Ada who lives her life on the run as a mercenary to escape her overbearing and powerful father. When she finds herself with a bounty on her head from her father and a fiancé she definitely doesn’t want to marry. Captured by a crew hired by her fiancé, Ada finds herself sharing a cell with a chained up, and nearly naked Loch which should scare her-and it does, but her fiancé scares her even more. Using her knowledge of the blueprints of their ship, Ada escapes with Loch and the two set up an uneasy alliance as they race around the stars evading bounty hunters and picking up old friends along the way. Combining politics, family obligations, a strong dose of courage and honor, and a whole lot of steamy glances, this story is an engrossing adventure through the stars.

I loved this! Just loved it! It’s the first book in the Consortium Rebellion series and I put the second book on hold at the Library before I even finished the first. It’s fast paced with just enough science to make you think about jumping through wormholes in space without questioning it too hard. This isn’t a knock on the author’s research-I just like that particular amount of sci in my sci-fi. It’s also fun. The banter between Ada and her friends is great and has that really authentic and natural feel to it. Even when Ada is negotiating for someone’s freedom (ha, thought you were getting a spoiler huh?) she’s all, I’m going to wear this amazing dress because screw it! It’s a great dress!

Ada is also super smart without being a robot but she’s also very relatable and human. She puts others first, protects the innocent, and knows her limits. Her honesty about her abilities is endearing and she knows when to ask for help. Her relationship with Loch is just so lovely. They both value honesty and trust and they have real conversations about their relationships and feelings that read as completely natural. They don’t have that staged “we need to move the story along” feel to them. With the focus on Ada’s point of view, we do miss out on some of Loch’s history that I would have liked to know more about but maybe we’ll get more bits in further books. We do find out that Loch has some dark ties to Ada’s family and you’d think that makes the whole family gross, but Ada’s siblings seem like really good people and it’s just their dad that’s power hungry trash.

This is just a really great book, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I’m really looking forward to the rest of the series. If you’d like to get your hands on this, and help support the site, you can do so here:

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