STAR SPLITTER

In a far future with quantum communication and teleportation, something goes terribly wrong.

After 6 years apart, it’s time for 17-year-old Jessica to be reunited with her parents—but at the cost of her life on Earth, as instead of coming home, her parents are making her join them on their interstellar scientific mission on a distant, post-extinction–event world. The teleportation technology destroys the original body and prints a new one at the other end, but when Jessica wakes up expecting to be in orbit, it’s obvious things have gone horribly, violently, lethally awry. Readers explore the mystery as Jessica tries to solve it—and survive—in alternating “before” and “after” chapters. The dual timelines cover both what happened on the ship (deliciously ominous, considering readers know what’s coming) and her struggles on the strange planet as well as the physical and emotional implications of the disaster. The expertly juggled storyline nurtures a tension that blossoms into a palpable sense of dread as the downright spooky nature of the disaster is explored. Themes of identity hit hard, as they come with high stakes. The conclusion results in an open-ended yet satisfying stand-alone novel, though the future setting is well developed enough that readers will hope for more. Though some characters have names that signal ethnic diversity in the supporting cast, most lack physical descriptors and default to White.

An intense, read-in-one-sitting kind of ride.