Suspended in the Stars (Xerus Galaxy Saga, #1)

by E. A. Hendryx

A girl in hiding. A boy on the run. The fate of the galaxy between them. 

When Talie Zarna is forced to hide rogue soldier, Renner Cartha, her life isn’t the only thing threatened. Living as the famed Soaring Staress on the circus spaceship Midway masks her true identity, but Renner’s very presence threatens to draw unwanted attention. 

As a former royal guard, Renner holds secrets of his own. Like evidence of a political assassination he is on a mission to deliver to the Xerus Galaxy’s governing council. Renner's flirtatious confidence is at odds with the seriousness of his mission, but when his former guard captain, Jas Uli-Tai, discovers him hiding among the circus performers, Talie risks everything she's come to cherish—going so far as to leave the safety of the Phenomena circus—to do what is right. 

With Jas closing in at every turn, Talie and Renner come close to finding the High Council only to discover corruption at its core. Their only option for escape is a cocky smuggler who’s not quite what he seems and an underground resistance group called The Rising that’s fighting for change in the galaxy. Faced with the weight of her true identity and the cost of embracing it, Talie must decide if she is willing to give up everything for the sake of saving the Galaxy, even if that means giving up the boy she loves.

• ASIN: B0CDDQ9VPD
• Publish Date: 7 November 2023
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Pine Mountain Publishing
• Format: eBook (Kindle)
• Pages: 435
• Language: English

Reviews

[ladygrey]

I backed the Kickstarter campaign for this book, mostly because the cover is very pretty and the video teaser was really good. It also had an interesting idea with the circus in space. With a semi-personal connection to a book like that, it’s easy to want the book be be good, to root for the author. So it’s hard to say that Suspended in the Stars had a great marketing campaign, but wasn’t a great book.

It wasn’t a bad book at all. It was a little long and the plot could have used a bit of tightening up. It had some tension in the first act with the circus and all the secrets hidden there. But once those were out…the tension was out too. I put it down for over a week and had to remind myself that I needed to pick it back up and finish it. I wasn’t that interested in the characters. I wasn’t that curious about what was going on or what was going to happen next. I really didn’t care about the fate of the galaxy. A lot of things happen in the story and they happen fast so it never seemed that any one moment had much depth, the story didn’t feel…immersive…substantive…it was skimming competently on the surface from moment to moment. Which isn‘t a terrible thing. Some books are light books, this just felt like it was going for more and did’t quite reach it.

There’s nothing I highlighted in the whole book. No turn of phrase or fascinating emotional moment. The writing is sufficient but not impressive. There’s nothing I want to reread in it. I feel bad saying that, because I wanted Hendryx to be success and wanted it to be a good book I could get excited about.

I had also had a slight problem with the third climax (three separate high action moments near the end of the book, any of which could have wrapped up the story so yes, three climaxes). Once an object has stopped moving in space, it no longer exerts force. There’s no gravity. It’s momentum has been arrested. iIt’s propulsion source (from when it’s fired out of the ship) has ceased. On earth misssles can have internal propulsion but that comes from a fuel burning source and fire would be extinguished in space with no oxygen so that wouldn’t work. So, once Talie stopped the missles, they would simply hang there in space without requiring any further effort from her. Also Gravless. Not telekinetic. There is no gravity to manipulate in space so there is nothing she could use to turn the missles around and project them back to the ships. It just—it’s this huge moment that makes ZERO sense and all the tension in it is a lie.

I did appreciate that it ended cleanly. There’s an opening for the next book, but the reader isn’t left feeling like the story is incomplete without the next book. I definitely don’t regret getting the book. I paid to satisfy my curiosity and find it was a fair deal. Though I hoped for more.