Vibes: everyone is queer, pretty much, grumpy x sunshine, grieving and falling in love, BIG MYSTERY–HUGE

Heat Index: 5/10

Cleo is obsessed with space–which is what leads to her friends accidentally launching a ship towards Proxima Centauri (and it will take… seven years there and back for them to return to Earth; if they survive). But in her defense, she was just trying to find out what happened to the crew that disappeared on launch day twenty years ago! And the the dark matter engine kicked off on its own! Fortunately (?) they’re quickly joined by a hologram of Billie, the ship’s vanished captain. Unfortunately, she doesn’t remember exactly what happened. Or what’s going to happen now. Also, she seems to really dislike Cleo–or does she?

OH, this was a lot. Both in terms of genres–it’s like, sci-fi with some pretty hard science, I think, knowing nothing about science, plus a bit of magic, plus romcom, plus like… a treatise on loss and loving again?–and plot. This is definitely, ultimately, a romance. And it it’s really quite beautiful. Yes, there are jokes, yes there’s a mystery that actually gave me a bit of the creeps (in a good way), but ultimately this is about one woman who’s gone through this massive loss having her heart cracked open by someone who’s sort of given up on everything that seems to matter to her and is trying to ignore that by charging into space.

It bit off a lot. Like, this is a big swing of a book, and it’s not perfectly perfect. But it is really good.

Quick Takes:

–This is a textbook grumpy/sunshine book. Billie is a take-no-prisoners alpha bitch, and even in hologram form (to be clear: the hologram is fully sentient, the “real” Billie essentially uploaded her consciousness into the ship right before disappearing) she isn’t afraid to boss people around. She has a hard shell, and she’s not easy to get through to.

Cleo, on the other hand, is bright and curious and perhaps doesn’t take life seriously enough (which is definitely in part a coping mechanism for how badly the Earth is doing… which uh, hit pretty close to home!). Billie puts her in order and forces her to face shit head on; Cleo forces Billie to be a kinder, gentler person and breaks through her walls in a way she really needs. Their love story is really touching, and if you’re the type of person who loves to see a hardened person get broken down by falling in love (like me) you’ll love this.

–There’s so much representation in this cast of characters! The “crew” is made up of an Asian man, Abe, whose partner (also in the group) Kaleisha is a Black trans woman. You also have Rose, who’s non-binary, Cleo, who’s a Black lesbian, and Billie, a bi woman, making up the primary team. It’s all woven in very naturally, and you get the sense that everyone cares for each other and has this sense of solidarity. Just little things, like everyone checking to see if the ship has the hormones Kaleisha needs (don’t worry, it does).

I also actually really appreciated the way that Billie was implied to be a woman who primarily dated women and then had her sexuality questioned after she got engaged to a man. Her relationship with the fiance she lost, Neil, is a huge part of who she is–and it’s not invalidated by her falling in love with Cleo, or vice versa. In fact, so much of Billie’s arc is informed by her grief and pain. She literally ran to space to escape her grief, and it’s like–you just can’t. And you also can’t avoid the reality of moving on, and the fear that comes with loving people you may lose. Oof.

–The mystery was so eerie? Like, the idea of an entire crew of astronauts just disappearing right when they were meant to be launched into space… can you imagine the podcasts?

Hamilton wove this in really well–you get news articles, and especially comms between members of the crew, most of them involving Billie. Which is… man. It feels so sinister, and it also feels a bit separate from the Billie you see in the active present, because this is the “disappeared” Billie, not the hologram. It was a little stomach-churning for me, because, though I knew this was a romance and therefore would have an HEA, I still felt so worried for her and worried about what she was withholding.

–My one critique would be that I do feel like the story goes on a bit long, and could have had the ending shortened a bit. You kind of have this big climactic moment, and then we have to pick up the pieces and hurry to tie up loose ends. Which couldn’t be entirely avoided, given the plot of the novel, but could have been a bit tidier. Not a huge issue at all, though, and it was nice to sort of bask in Billie and Cleo’s relationship at that point.

The Sex:

So like. Billie is a hologram. Therefore, she can’t touch or be touched. Which does put a hold on the physical sex in the novel, but doesn’t stop it from being sexy and sexual. I mean, in a lot of ways I found the tension between Billie and Cleo hotter than some of the klutzy sex scenes I’ve read recently–and that’s saying something coming from me, Little Miss Write More Sex.

That said, there is one full sex scene in the book, and it is quite hot. Won’t tell you how it comes about, but you won’t be dissatisfied. Neither were they.

I am not a sci-fi person. I’m not against it, but I often find it difficult to follow and a bit too cerebral for me to get emotionally involved, even when it’s a sci-fi romance. This is the kind of sci-fi that works for me. It exists to serve the characters, and while the science is definitely fairly involved, it’s not difficult to understand. (At least for me.)

I keep coming back to this, but I just found the emotional themes of the novel really moving in a way I didn’t expect. It felt kind of heartbreaking at points. But thanks to the magic of a romance novel, it comes back to this circle of love and warmth (which really does transcend romantic love, too–the platonic bonds in this novel are great). My heart was full.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.