The Two Lies of Faven Sythe
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 3 Jun 2025
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- £5.49
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- Pre-Order
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
'A thrilling standalone adventure that James S.A. Corey fans will relish' Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A search for a missing person uncovers a galaxy-spanning conspiracy in this thrilling standalone space opera from award-winning author Megan E. O'Keefe.
The Black Celeste is a ghost story. A once-legendary spaceship collecting dust in a cosmic graveyard known as the Clutch. Only famed pirate Bitter Amandine knows better, and she'll do anything to never go near it again. No matter the cost.
Faven Sythe is crystborn, a member of the near-human species tasked with charting starpaths from station to station. She's trained to be a navigator her entire life. But when her mentor disappears, leaving behind a mysterious starpath terminating in the Clutch, she is determined to find the truth. And only Amandine has the answers.
What they will find is a conspiracy bigger than either of them. Their quest for the truth will uncover secrets Amandine has long fought to keep buried - secrets about how she survived her last encounter in the Clutch, and what's really hidden out there amongst the stars . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
O'Keefe (the Devoured Worlds trilogy) flexes her worldbuilding chops in this superior space opera, set in a future in which shards of "sacred cryst," grown under women's skins, are "plucked free to be nurtured into a woman, or something like a woman" who serve as spaceship navigators using their special ability to chart paths between stars. Cryst-born navigator Faven Sythe is suspicious when her mentor, Ulana Valset, who was unusually tense at their last meeting, disappears. She breaks several rules to trace the route of Ulana's spaceship, finding that it traveled into the Clutch, a "dark fist of a dyson sphere seized around a whimpering star," the home of the abandoned Black Celeste, a legendary ghost ship, where many navigators before Ulana have also vanished. Now Faven partners with "Bitter" Amandine, a pirate with knowledge of the Clutch, to find Ulana—and ascertain whether a conspiracy targeting navigators is at work. Nuanced characterization and a clever mystery keep the pages flying. It's a thrilling standalone adventure that James S.A. Corey fans will relish.
