When a spy is stranded on a dead planet with her mortal enemy, she must first figure out how to survive before she can uncover the conspiracy that landed them both there in the first place.
She’s a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they’re found and Naira Sharp knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way under the guise of helping humanity’s expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the whole family down from the inside.
He’s the heir to the dynasty. Tarquin Mercator never wanted to run a galaxy-spanning business empire. He just wanted to study rocks and read books. But Tarquin’s father has tasked him with monitoring the mining of a new planet, and he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.
Disguised as Tarquin’s new bodyguard, Naira plans to destroy his ship before it lands. But neither of them expects to end up stranded on a dead planet. To survive and keep her secret, Naira will have to join forces with the man she’s sworn to hate. And together they will uncover a plot that’s bigger than both of them.

Thank you to Orbit Books for sending me a finished copy of this for review! This does not affect my review, all thoughts here are my own honest opinions.

Okay the fact that this book only has 1014 ratings and 248 reviews on Goodreads is a CRIME!!! A crime I tell you! Because this book whips ass. It’s an incredible start to a sci-fi trilogy that has elements of horror (in a creepy, survival way, not a scary way) and dystopian fiction (in a corporations controlling society way). It starts off with a bang and doesn’t let up the whole time. Also, the casual queerness is a wonderful thing to see!

I wanted to share with you some of my favorite first lines from various novels. By definition, the first line of a book is the first thing we read. From them we can get a hint about the story and the feeling of the book. They’re the kind of thing that can be SUPER impactful if done well, but never hurts the story if they’re not a “blow-you-away” kind of line.

Some of them I like because they are funny, others because they are jarring, and others because they’re just damn beautiful.