The Blighted Stars (The Devoured Worlds Series — Book 1)
Part of the The Devoured Worlds Series · Book 1
Stranded on a dead planet with her mortal enemy, a spy must survive and uncover a conspiracy in the first book of an epic space opera trilogy by an award-winning author.
She's a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they're found and Naira Sharp thinks she 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 settlement 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 the settlement ship before they make land. 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.
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The Blighted Stars (The Devoured Worlds Series — Book 1)
Why It Passed
No author paid to be here. The shelf is not sponsored. Every book is read in full before it ever reaches you, then weighed against four things we refuse to bend on. Here is how this one held up.
writing
The prose does the work without showing off. You forget you're reading and just fall in.
characters
Nobody here is only a love interest. Even the side characters have a pulse and reason to exist.
pacing
The slow burn is genuinely slow. It earns every inch of tension instead of stalling for length.
payoff
The ending lands. No cheap cliff just to sell you the next one. (Okay. Maybe a small one. You'll survive!)
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