The Stars Between Us by Cristin Terrill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Vika Hale lives on a struggling planet with her parents and little sister. She works as a barmaid even though she doesn’t necessarily need to.
You see, there’s a secret-side to Vika’s life, a mysterious benefactor who has been watching her since she was a child and providing in certain ways for her and her sister.
As she nears adulthood, Vika suddenly gets summoned to the wealthy nearby planet of Ploutos. It’s requested she attend the reading of the will of her benefactor, who as it turns out was a billionaire.
Lucky Miss Vika is included in his will. We love an inheritance story!
It’s at the reading of the will that Vika first learns that she had been hand-picked by the dead billionaire to marry his son, Leo Chapin, the largest beneficiary of the will. I can hear the wedding bells now!
But then in an incredibly ill-timed twist of fate, Leo Chapin is killed in a spaceship explosion, cause unknown. Can you even believe that terrible luck?
Vika is allowed to stay on Ploutos thanks to the kindness of Leo’s one-time caregivers. They have been loyal employees to the Chapin family for years and now it seems their loyalty has paid off. They’ve inherited a huge sum of money.
Mira and Hal, the couple in question, take Vika in, provide her with a healthy allowance and allow her to ingratiate herself into the upper echelons of Ploutos society.
Perhaps she can find a suitable ((read: rich)) husband, thus ensuring that her family will continue to be cared for. With a little sparkle and glamour, she’s sure she’ll be able to do it.
There are still questions surrounding Leo’s death though, especially after another ship carrying Chapin heirs is attacked. Vika vows to get to the bottom of it.
This book was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed Terrill’s writing and like the world she created here. I found the tone of the novel especially interesting.
I read in another review that this felt like a retelling, original source material unspecified, and I absolutely agree with that. It does feel like a retelling. It carries similar themes to a lot of Victorian literature. I was personally channeling a bit of futuristic Great Expectations, or Vanity Fair vibes.
The whole idea of a have-not plucked from their dire existence and place into the sphere of the wealthiest families in their society; that entire dynamic is fascinating and watching Vika navigate it, the choices she made and the motivations behind her choices, I found to be completely engaging.
This novel is told as a dual-POV. You mainly follow Vika, but you also get the perspective of Sky Foster, a rather mysterious young man who she met just prior to leaving her home planet. He actually is a lodger at her parent’s home.
Sky does work on Ploutos though, for Hal, the man who has taken Vika in. The pair have a relationship fraught with tension, but when Vika fears her life may be in danger by whoever is coming after the Chapin heirs, she turns to Sky for help.
I really liked the relationship between Vika and Sky. Make no mistake, Vika is not a perfect character. She struggles with making choices that feel right to her.
After moving to Ploutos, she sort of cuts herself off from her family. She feels like she is doing things for them, but to them, it doesn’t seem that way. It’s a really tough position for her to be in.
I felt for her, I really did. Some may see her as selfish, but I felt like she was doing the best she could. She’s young, torn between two worlds, trying to figure out what would be best for her future. There were a lot of people willing to take advantage of her, but she had to learn how to be cunning enough to prevent that from happening.
It’s all a game. It’s chess pieces moving around a board. Eat or be eaten; extremely engaging content.
With this being said, I’m not sure how long this one will stay in my memory, but I’m happy for the time I spent with this story. I loved the futuristic world with the classic themes woven throughout.
Thank you to the publisher, Wednesday Books and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review.
I am definitely interested in reading more from Cristin Terrill!!
