A musical FMC on the run, living it up as an amateur assassin, all while working on getting clean. It’s gritty, cyberpunk underworld vibes with high-paced space adventure.
A dark and emotional tone mixed with the space opera sweep, urban fantasy and romance-driven intrigue makes for a really fun read. It leans more towards and action-first, medium-burn romance and has strong world-building that sets up future books.
This book kept surprising me with the heavier/darker themes it tackled. Gemma is yet another rich princess on the run, but this time the archetype actually holds up and becomes the turning point in the climax. She’s a recovering addict (due to a traumatic event in her past) who is still relatively new to being clean, and her struggle with addiction is a central part of her story.
Her addiction feels real and her struggle to stay sober is very relatable. She does relapse on the page and deals with the fallout of that – it’s detailed enough to feel real, but not so involved it turns into a meditation on life as a recovering addict.
The world feels lived-in and the story doesn’t skim over the nuance similar adventure stories often will neglect for the sake of expediency. The story isn’t afraid to take it’s time in setting up a plot point, yet it never strays so far from the main story as to get lost.
The story embraces Gemma’s naiveté and doesn’t turn her into a pure magical genius, despite her being perfectly positioned for it as a child prodigy. Throughout the story issues that stood out to me as I read were picked up by characters and addressed in-story, which I really appreciated.
The action is fun and not repetitive. The romance is steamy but stays closed door. The friendship at the heart of this book brings a lot of heart. The backstory of the two BFFs is dark and serious without being too heavy-handed as darker elements are handled with a healthy dose of snark (a personal favourite). The story also tackled some stereotypes around addiction, doing so with respect and love.
Gemma’s life as a recovering addict feels lived in, and I like how she’s… I hesitate to say hypersexual because she’s not, but let’s call her horny. She’s horny and not ashamed of it. You go girl 💅 She’s also 19 so we can pin some of that on pure hormones 😄 but even so this doesn’t read like NA and I love that. My hand isn’t being held through every single thing and the story trusts me to read the subtext. Absolutely love that.
The writing is at times melodramatic (especially around the scenes while Gemma is under the influence of drugs it got a bit heavy-handed for my taste) but for the most part it’s tight and enjoyable. The tone of the audiobook narration triggered my misophonia, but when I sped it up it was okay – and the narrator feels like she fits Gemma’s voice really well.
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One snake bite. One moment of clarity she really didn’t ask for. Sasha Barrett has survived two years at the Praetorian Academy — turns out her captain was always going to be the most dangerous thing in the field.
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