The Stars Too Fondly
A Novel
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4.6 • 8 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In her breathtaking debut—part space odyssey, part sapphic rom-com—Emily Hamilton weaves a suspenseful, charming, and irresistibly joyous tale of fierce friendship, improbable love, and wonder as vast as the universe itself.
So, here’s the thing: Cleo and her friends really, truly didn’t mean to steal this spaceship.
They just wanted to know why, twenty years ago, the entire Providence crew vanished without a trace. But then the stupid dark matter engine started all on its own, and now these four twenty-somethings are en route to Proxima Centauri, unable to turn around, and being harangued by a snarky hologram that has the face and attitude of the ship’s missing captain, Billie.
Cleo has dreamt of being an astronaut all her life, and Earth is kind of a lost cause at this point, so this should be one of those blessings in disguise that people talk about. But as the ship gets deeper into space, the laws of physics start twisting, old mysteries come crawling back to life, and Cleo’s initially combative relationship with Billie turns into something deeper and more desperate than either woman was prepared for.
Lying somewhere in the subspace between science fantasy and sapphic rom-com, The Stars Too Fondly is a soaring near-future adventure about dark matter and alternate dimensions, leaving home and finding family, and the galaxy-saving power of letting yourself love and be loved.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this tantalizing space opera debut, Hamilton weaves a thoughtful, self-aware story bursting with witty repartee and provocative romance. The year is 2061, more than 20 years after the failed launch of the Providence, a spaceship that promised to save humanity from a dying Earth by using a newly developed dark matter engine to bring colonists to a habitable exoplanet in only seven years. Unfortunately, an unknown error caused the entire crew to vanish without explanation when the engine switched on. Still, the fervor surrounding the launch inspired a new generation of scientists and historians. Four such rambunctious young professionals—Cleo, a computer engineer; Ros, a doctor; Abe, a historian; and Kaleisha, a botanist—break into the Providence and accidentally start the engine, lifting off. Even after activating the ship's computer—a hologram with the uploaded consciousness of its former captain, Wilhelmina Lucas—they're not able to reverse course. They also find that the dark matter engine has altered their bodies, giving them superpowers. Captain Lucas—"Billie" to her friends—and Cleo investigate the source of their newfound abilities, while also agonizing over their growing feelings for each other. This Star Trek-inspired space adventure has something for everyone—heartwarming romantic comedy, cosmic superpowers, and humanity's future at stake. It should win plenty of fans.
