She’s not the strongest or the best fighter on the Starlight’s crew, but she brings her own valuable skills to the table with her hacking. I loved watching her take charge on Bastion and afterward with leading the rescue mission. As the book is told from her POV, you get to know her and see her insecurities and fears – she has so much emotional depth. Yes, she has a bit of an optimistic, bubbly and friendly personality, but it wasn’t in your face. Usually, with sunshine/grump tropes, I find the person who is a sunshine a bit grating, but not Kee. When it comes to the characters, I adored Kee.

Seriously, this romance was everything I wanted and more. The chemistry between these two was on fire! This was the perfect use of forced proximity to move the romance forward! You also get a bit of a bodyguard with Varro, so if you like heroes with a protective instinct, this one is for you. Kee has a very obvious crush on Varro and thinks her feelings aren’t returned, and, ugh, it just brings so much tension and a little bit of heartache, and I love it.

There is a lot of mutual pining between Varro and Kee, though Varro keeps emotions tightly guarded, but I’m a sucker for mutual pining when the other doesn’t know. I’m not usually the biggest grump/sunshine romance fan, but the romance in this worked perfectly! The romance between Varro and Kee gave me so many heart-squeezing emotions. Yet, when the two of them get tied up in a rescue mission away from the rest of their crew, they need to figure out how to work together fast to protect not only themselves but thousands of other innocent lives caught up in a broader plot to start a war. She vows to keep her feelings to herself as he rebuffs her flirting. However, as she disembarks for what she hopes will be a quiet few weeks to nurse a broken heart on the space station Bastion, who shows up at her door but the very person she’s hoping to avoid – Varro Runkow. Kee Ildez wants to get away from the crew on Starlight’s Shadow – and a certain Valovian who she has developed an unrequited crush on – and spend some time tracking down information on a group of traitors trying to start an intergalactic war between the Valovian Empire and Federated Human Planets. I immediately got sucked into the story and stayed up until 3 am two days in a row so I could finish this – I couldn’t put it down! Links: Amazon – Barnes & Noble – GoodreadsĪfter loving Hunt the Stars, I could not wait to read the next book in the series! Eclipse the Moon lived up to my expectations. Series or Standalone: Starlight’s Shadow #2

Jessie mihalik goodreads