Generations ago, a starship carrying settlers from Earth landed on a planet they called Shadow. The descendants of these settlers have split into two very different groups. One group lives underground in the Warrens, while the other lives in the wreckage of the starships in a city called Cairn. Talkirk is the leader of the Cairn and when Lucan appears during an audience claiming to be a Pureblood from the Warrens, the Talkirk finds that he can’t resist this fragile looking man. But will the warning Lucan brings be enough to convince the Talkirk to entrust the very lives of his people to the hands of an outsider?

To Touch the Stars is a good futuristic novel, I found the plot to be enjoyable and the characters to be very manly, virile, and underneath it all, oddly sweet. The Talkirk has to maintain the appearance of kingliness at all times. Any show of weakness would be detrimental to his position. The only time he shows even the slightest bit of his true self is with his second-in-command and with his harem of men. Lucan is the newest edition to this harem and he comes with a story that seems unbelievable: he claims to be a Pureblood. The things that Lucan has to do to prove his story seemed a bit harsh to me but then again this is a futuristic society, almost post-apocalyptical in several ways. The secondary characters, especially Athel, the favorite of the harem, all play a role in highlighting the society but I wished we could have learned more about Athel and the others. While the story was stellar and the by-play between the characters was highly interesting, the background upon which the story is based sort of muddied my enjoyment. This underground group calls themselves the Purebloods. Why? I’m not sure; did the aboveground group breed with natives that aren’t mentioned? I don’t suppose it’s really important but it did bother me. The other thing that should be mentioned is that the leader of the Cairn is called the Talkirk. This is because the original leader of the ship was named Edmund Talkirk, something that is only mentioned in the blurb. I hope that Sienna Black follows this story up with another that will follow the main characters on their continuing journey and give us more insight into how this society works and shed light on the developing relationship between Lucan, Talkirk, and the secondary character Athel.

Reviewed by: Hayley