Synopsis

Space renegade Zara Cole may have finally met her match. Lifekiller—a creature that can devour entire planets—is spreading terror throughout the universe, and it seems nothing can stand in the monstrous godking’s way.Reeling from a series of battles, Zara and her wounded band of allies are going to need a strategy before they face Lifekiller again. Zara’s street smarts may not be enough when their enemy could be anywhere, destroying civilizations and picking his teeth with the bones.

And just when it feels like she’s reached a special place in her bond with Bea and Nadim, an ex from Earth with an ax to grind comes after her with nefarious intentions. With human enemies, alien creatures, and mechanical stalkers on her tail, it’s down to the wire for Zara to save the galaxy—and the people she calls home—before the godking consumes them all.

Review

4,5 stars

What an ending to this series!

This book is filled with action upon action. When one crisis is averted Zara and her crew have to deal with another threat to the universe.  It’s like they are magnet for danger!

Never before in the series has the situation been so dire and desperate.

Lucky for us, Zara has now gathered many friends from the human honors Yusuf, Marko, Chao-Xing and Beatriz to the aliens Suncross and his crew, the Abyin Dommas Starcurrent. Even the reformed phage Xyll is now on board and trying to help them.

Let’s not forget the robots either with the med bod EMITU who has been rewired by Beatriz and now has a mind of its own, discovering the delights of the haiku poems and a new robot killer: Jury.

Xyll broke my heart somehow because having defected his specie, he felt so isolated.

“Want? What is want?”

“It’s like when you are hungry, you want food. But there should be more to life, right?”

Finally, Xyll answered, “Home”.

“You want a place to belong.”

“Belong. Yes. Would also like to be …not Xyll.”

“You want to be somebody else?”

“Not alone,” it said.

Zara has come a long way from the first book. She is more mature, has learned to talk before acting. She became the leader of these crews, has earned the alien’s lizard’s, the Bruqvisz, respect. She’s become their spokesperson.

“Chao-King’s expression shifted slightly, though I couldn’t read her reaction. “You’ve changed, Zara. It was a gamble but you risked yourself to save everyone else. I admit, I didn’t see it when you were first chosen, but …you are Honors material all the way.””

Nadim has grown too. He’s become stronger. Not jaded but less naïve. It was a symbiotic growth as he has softened Zara and she has toughened him up.

Cheers for having a sapphic love bordering on hot trio with alien species. They named themselves Bezardim because their bond is strong and stable. It was like having a sweet and hot trio. I confess that as much as I love reading MM stories I don’t like FF stories very much. Do I feel “threatened”? Vulnerable? Exposed? No idea but I was glad that this was a YA story and that we didn’t have any heavy sex scenes.

I also really loved the Bruqvisz enthusiasm for battles if they could die in glory and have songs written about their courage and EMITU’s sarcasm!

Oh and be warned but you will have a huge twist like none you could ever have imagined! I am still recovering from it but it was brilliant!!!!

Action, personal growth, friendship, crew, human/alien trio, unthinkable twist …. What’s not to like right? So recommend it? ABSOLUTELY.

Have you read this series? What do you think of sapphic love stories?

Thanks for reading!

Sophie