By: Elizabeth Guizetti. Format: eBook. Read: January 2014.
Abby Boyd Lei and her siblings, Jin and Orchid, are given the opportunity to leave Earth and take up studies on the planet Kipos. It is a dream come true for Abby, who has dreamed of a world outside of her own. Unfortunately for her, this dream trip comes at a high cost, when she is separated from her family and sold to breed with a rich Kiposi. Cole Alekos is captain of his ship of explorers and is raising his three children. His family and team are in charge of finding a suitable planet to live on, otherwise there culture will be lost for good. Harden and Helen are piloting a ship, when a runaway, Abby. finds them and pleads for their help.
Elizabeth Guizetti builds an intense world in this sci-fi novel. The planets and space travel is filled with so many details that readers will feel as though they are with Abby in her billet. This book covers more mature topics of rape, population explosions, and the meaning of family. The more emotional, “human” scenes are glossed over, so readers don’t experience too many gruesome details, but at times this may cause readers to feel as though they missed something. The points-of-view rotate between Cole and Abby, despite the fact that they hardly interact. The last thirty percent of this book is thrilling and readers will not be able to put the book down, at that point.
Sci-fi is not a subject that I read too often. My head tends to have trouble keeping up with light-years and aging times in space. I was grateful that this book had chapters that marked the year and kept reminding me of how old each character is, during that time. Abby is a complex character, who on Earth is ready for adulthood, seems to welcome a “new” childhood in space. There were a few minor grammatical errors, but they weren’t overwhelming to the storyline. The plot is a bit slow for the majority of the book, especially since the two main storylines don’t combine until a third of the through. I kept waiting for something more to happen, but around the seventy-percent mark, I couldn’t put the book down. (I stayed up until 2am finishing the book and wanted to know more about Abby and the Alekos family after I was finished.)
Enjoy!
~Ariesgrl
Notes:
A copy of this book was provided by the author for me to review. To learn more about this author and her work, please visit her website.