From the blurb, this book sounded like everything I could possibly want in a science fiction. Unfortunately, there were too many characters who had basically the same voice, and the plot dragged and dragged. The book is about twice as long as it should be, and really needs somebody to look at pacing!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

2.5 ⭐
Star bringer is a new adult, sci-fi space opera following a band of people joint as a team following an explosion on a station they were on.
The novel, written by authors Tracy Wolff and Nina Croft is written in multiple P.O.V. Initially we meet Princess Kalinda as she approaches the Caelestis, a state-of-the-art space station, which she was sent to visit by her mother – The Empress.
Ian and Max are posing as guards upon the Caelestis as a way of gaining intel on a prisoner they’re trying to find.
The next two characters are High Priestess Rain and her sidekick Merrick. Rain had to attend in place for another High Priestess who couldn’t.
During their visit and tour of the laboratories that housed alien artifacts, explosions begin resulting in our characters escaping on a random ship but now with the addition of a prisoner, Beckett, from the Reformer, a ship transporting prisoners illegally and Gage who is a tech wizz that helped Ian and Max.
This book had elements of the Aurora Cycle trilogy by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman but with more explicit romance and curse words but less substance and creativity.
I enjoyed the premise. A group of people that normally would never interact are now stuck on a ship being hunted by the entire galaxy. There’s drama, romance, and conflict. Unfortunately, I didn’t click with it. It definitely felt YA with some of the characters being extremely immature and dialogue that felt really silly and unrealistic. I felt that sex scenes and f-bombs were added after the fact to bump it up into the New Adult category. With the worldbuilding, it felt very lack-lustre with the international currency for the different planets being called planetas which felt unimaginative, and this was the case with most of the plot, setting and characters. It was also very long with gaps in between dramas where nothing really happened, the same characters argued, the same had romantic moments, something bad would happen and the cycle would start again.
I’m glad some people enjoyed this book. It was one of my anticipated reads for the year. Unfortunately, it fell flat. Thank you for the eARC and the opportunity to review it!

This was a really great space pirates story. I think it had a lot of great aspects, some good representation and really great action scenes. I'm really interested to see where this story goes in future books.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with this ARC!

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Little Brown Book Group UK for allowing me access to an eArc copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I was immediately drawn to this book as I had read Tracy Wolf’s Crave series and absolutely loved it, and could not wait to see what she would do in a more sci-fi themed novel. I have never read anything by Nina Croft, and I am so glad this was my first. I had seen this advertised as Aurora Rising but for adults and I wholeheartedly agree. I absolutely loved the Aurora rising series and I loved this book as well.

It features a wide variety of cast, with great LGBTQ rep so far, that come from all different backgrounds and lifestyles. Throughout the course of the book you see these characters get stuck in space together and slowly get to see their dynamics and interactions change over time. They start off as a group of strangers, yet they all become united by extraordinary circumstances, leading
to a deep connection between them all. A lot happens in this story and the writing is fast paced and so easy to read. Sometimes the writing isn’t the best, but I’m here to have a great time so you can kind of move past it. It does start off a little slow and the world building can get a little intense, but oh my god the ending is so worth it!

The romance in this book is also really sweet. You have grumpy sunshine with Beckett and Rain, as well as and enemies to lovers with Ian and Kali. My personal favourite part of this story is their ship Starlight, which they come to realise is sentient. I can’t wait to see what they do with the ship in the next book, and hope they do a lot more with it then! I would highly recommend this to any space sci-fi readers out there!

It's like Knight Rider... in space!

This book was a super fun read. With an unlikely mix of characters, thrown together on a really cool spaceship, you just know you're going to have a good time.

There's romance. There's forced proximity. And there's plenty of banter between a group of people who would never usually hang out.

Plus. There's Beckett.

Unfortunately, this is not the book for me. I was so excited to read it after seeing it all over social media, but I've struggled so much with it. Although the book has multiple POV's, they all had a very similar voice and felt rather young.

The names for worlds and creatures fell flat for me and the fact that all the people from different planets all spoke the same language seemed rather naïve.

After seeing all the buzz over this book, the issue is possibly with me as it seems so popular but it's just not the book for me, sorry.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the arc.