Laziness makes me resort to the Goodreads synopsis once again:
It’s been several generations since a genetic experiment gone wrong caused the Reduction, decimating humanity and giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.
Elliot North has always known her place in the world. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family’s estate over love. Since then the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists are jumpstarting the wheel of progress, and Elliot’s estate is foundering, forcing her to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that include renowned explorer Captain Malakai Wenthforth – an almost unrecognizable Kai. And while Elliot wonders if this could be their second chance, Kai seems determined to show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she let him go.
But Elliot soon discovers her old friend carries a secret – one that could change their society…or bring it to its knees. And again, she’s faced with a choice: cling to what she’s been raised to believe, or cast her lot with the only boy she’s ever loved, even if she’s lost him forever.
Inspired by Jane Austen’s Persuasion, For Darkness Shows the Stars is a breathtaking romance about opening your mind to the future and your heart to the one person you know can break it.
I bought this book in an e-book sale a while back, based on the enthusiastic review onForever Young Adult. Then, as so often is the case, I forgot all about it. This summer, my fellow Cannonballers scotsa1000 and bonnie both reviewed it excellently and reminded me that I owned it and should probably do myself the favour of reading it.
I suspect the book works well as a piece of dystopian young adult even for readers that have never read Persuasion. It may possibly also tempt younger readers to check out Jane Austen’s classic novel. Ever since her mother passed, Elliot has been working herself nearly to death, trying to take care of the workers on her family’s estate, while her father and sister ignore their increasingly dire financial situation and live a life of indolence and leisure. Elliot’s father thinks nothing of exploiting his dependents or destroying a field of valuable crops to build himself a race track. When the famed admiral of the Cloud Fleet offers a substantial amount amount of money to rent her grandfather’s home and ship yard, she has no choice but to agree.
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I just picked this one up from the library… I’m excited about it, once I get some other books done and can actually read it.
That sounds great. Also I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who picks up books and then completely forgets about them. I’m going to put this on my list (and hopefully not forget about it), right now.
I hope you like it. It’s so much better than the pretty dire YA sci-fi cover makes it appear.
Yay! So glad you enjoyed it as well (and thanks for the shout-out). I agree that the worldbuilding is fantastic, while the Elliot-Kai pieces are weaker. That’s where non-readers of *Persuasion* might go a bit cold on the book. But it’s definitely way better than the cover suggests. I am seriously considering checking out her unicorn series.
Me too. Based on how much I enjoyed these two books, plus the fact that being able to be able to say that I’ve read a series entitled Killer Unicorns is almost enough of an incentive in itself.