The Blighted Stars

By: Megan E. O'Keefe

Narrated by: Ciaran Saward

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.

For more from Megan E. O'Keefe, check out:

The Protectorate

Velocity Weapon

Chaos Vector

Catalyst Gate

©2023 Megan E. O'Keefe (P)2023 Orbit

Critic reviews

"O’Keefe delivers a captivating exploration of identity in this smart, addictive space adventure full of intrigue, visceral danger, and deeply personal stakes. Come for the epic sci-fi action, stay for the charmingly broken characters just doing their best."—J. S. Dewes, author of The Last Watch

"The story’s environmental themes are handled very well (O’Keefe gives the reader much to think about without sounding didactic); the characters are lively; and the writing is full of energy. A very promising series launch."—Booklist

"The Blighted Stars is everything I want in a book: lots of action, lots of character, and lots of heart. Megan E. O’Keefe delights with every page, from her stunning action sequences set on alien planets to her exploration of the twisted pathways taken by the human heart. This is space opera for the ages, wrapped in complicated and delicious layers of family and loyalty and science and love and duty. I couldn’t put it down!"—Karen Osborne, author of Architects of Memory

Couldn’t stop listening

Great storyline sequence, pace, and well developed, unique characters. What is particularly interesting is the “living forever” system - described well, used as both security and insecurity in the characters’ minds-The narrator is perfect for this. I can’t explain it well but he does different character voices without modulating his voice too much-then the storyline itself isn’t interrupted.

Excellent

A great sci-fi, opera love story. It is light on the love story part, which is one of the reasons I like it. The story itself is thought-provoking and keeps the listener interested.

A good mystery-thriller set on a dead world!

This was a cool book with many nice twists and turns and some creative universe-building. I will admit that the world of Sixth Cradle is very threadbare, previously destroyed by the Shroud, and it's no more than a wasteland for our characters to get to know each other. But the lore shines in the society humanity exists within, run by various family dynasties competing with each other on everything except the need and hunt for Relkatite (I listened to the audiobook, so I apologize if I misspelled anything).

The characters are all loveable, and I will admit this book is heavily a romance when you break it down, but in a way, I enjoyed it. The only reason I dock a star is because there were some weird logic jumps that didn't make any sense to me. Small things, though, like when Nira and Tarq see "an animal" in the woods, they decide not to tell anyone at camp because they will "riot" was a weird stretch. I'm sure you want your perimeter guard to be aware of threats. Stuff like that, but it doesn't happen too much, but just enough to notice.

Overall, I recommend this book. I love me some shifting trust issues on an abandoned and dead world filled with mysteries and threats. I wonder how the rest of this trilogy pans out and I intend to get to more of it sometime in the future.

A good book elevated by a great voice actor

I don't usually prefer audio books to reading on my own, but with this book I couldn't wait to have time to listen to it even though I had the physical copy, because the voice acting was so compelling. I was glad to see that the same actor reads the next book in the series, too.

Simply Amazing

An excellent book by Megan E. O’keef, she has done it again. I believe the audiobook version should be experienced by anyone who read the book, it gives new perspectives and tones and life to the characters, and its worth listening to.

Thought provoking story

The plot was interesting and enjoyable. The mechanics of this universe provided for some interesting complications.

Loved it!!

A great SYFY with depth and an intriguing concept. The narration was absolutely perfect. I will read more of
Megan O'keefe for sure and hope there is a book 2!!

Interesting Premise

A little slow at the beginning but very enjoyable. I’d like to hear more from the ship’s AI as it achieved sentience. Narrator was very good for all but Naira’s character. She sounded like a 1930s Chicago gangster, which often took me out of the story.

Plus minus

A very good job by the narrator! His voices gave an extra dimension to the book and made it a lot better. Otherwise the book was aimed at a 15-20 year old audience. Typical recent themes of environmental collapse Ill managed by the corrupt powerful. The saviors are all spunky rebellious revolutionaries. The message to the young: you don’t, indeed shouldn’t (!), spend your efforts learning how to be a good person in a complex world. Instead just embrace your inner revolutionary and you can bask in the certainty of your virtue. Passionate intensity misleads again but allows you to strike heroic poses!

Slow but has potential

There aren’t many reviews for this book, so I thought my two cents would be helpful. I bought this book on sale and I don’t regret it, but I would regret having used a credit. It was entertaining, the writing is good, and the narration is fantastic, but it’s a little boring. I never wanted to stop listening, but I do think there were missed opportunities for a 17 hour book. There are weird gaps in the story line when something important happened to a main character but you don’t get to see it happen, you just heard about it after the fact from the narrator. I think the author could have cut out some of the romance and elaborated on some of the action that happened behind the scenes. I will not use a credit on the second book, however, I have added it to my wish list and will purchase it when/if it comes on sale. If your favorite genre is romance, this book may be credit worthy for you.