I received a copy from NMZ Fantasy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
When war threatens Elena Parks and her friends' lives, they’re forced to flee New Terra on an ancient spaceship that’s barely running. Lucky to make it out alive, the twenty survivors find themselves crash landing on Xytheos and getting married off by the Concord Stone. Now Elena’s married to Rythar, the Warlord of the Green Reach, and she’s about to be split up from the rest of her friends. Pissed about her predicament, she’s determined to hate Rythar while taking off to save her friends and regroup. The only problem? It’s hard to make a run for it when you don’t know anything about the planet you’ve landed on, and Elena’s discovering that she’s more attracted to Rythar than she wants to admit.
We follow Elena, an engineer and trauma nurse, from the moment she’s about to flee New Terra. We also occasionally follow Rythar, but we mostly follow Elena. I do wish we switched off to Rythar’s perspective more often, but I’m happy with the chapters we got. I really loved both characters and enjoyed all of the world building as well as some of the supporting characters that we got to know. There was also a lot of information to take in, but it never felt overwhelming because we never got too much at once.
My only complaint is that for someone who is supposed to be so smart, Elena kept getting riled up and jumping into action without properly formulating a plan. It bothered me because she seemed to learn from how going from A to Z without much planning never panned out, but then would do it all over again. Otherwise, she was a great character to follow. I just wished we got to see Elena learn from her mistakes when she’s supposed to be the leader of her friends.
That said, this won’t be a book for everyone. Elena is from New Terra and was part of the breeding program since humans are dying out. Xytheos is facing the same problem, and while they are genetically modified to the point that they’re no longer human, technology can’t cure the high infertility rates or low birth rates. The Concord Stone selects its so-called perfect matches with the best chances of success at procreation in mind, so think fated mates meets sci-fi. While the relationship that Elena and Rythar slowly build is based on communication and consent, the marriages happened because of rules that Elena and her friends had no say in. Check your trigger warnings before picking this up so you can pass on it if you need to.
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