Synopsis
If something seems too good to be real, you’ve got to get out of there. That’s the rule that Page Found has always followed. She’s a petty thief with no memory of her past, scrounging to survive on a backwater outpost – until she’s kidnapped by one of her marks.
Her kidnappers – the cruel, self-serving Zhak and the tough maverick Maelle – plan to pass Page off as a monk from an ancient, isolated planet to help them capture a treasure-filled ship. If Page is willing to play along, they all stand to become richer than they can imagine.
Everyone is keeping secrets, and Maelle finds her loyalties conflicted as she gets closer to their captive. Page can’t remember the last time she counted on anyone. But to navigate this deception, she and Maelle will have to trust each other to survive.
Review
Wow! Ren Hutchings has delivered a flawless standalone sequel set in the same world as Under Fortunate Stars. It’s so good, it left me physically punching the air.
I loved Ren’s debut, which was a character-driven timey-wimey adventure that boasted a stellar ensemble of characters. If you take out the time-travel aspects, you’ll find all of those elements carried through into this book too. The way she writes characters on the shady side of the law is so addictive, I couldn’t resist falling in love with them, and I found myself torn between wanting to race through the pages for more and wanting to slow down so I could be with them for as long as possible.
The tropes that carry across both books are found family and a reformation arc. Who doesn’t love a good reformation arc? The scoundrel who mends their ways and comes through — it’s a crowd pleaser, and one that Ren has seemed to have mastered. And do I have to even mention how awesome a found family narrative can be? Well, you won’t find it done better than here.
So yes, An Unbreakable World shares a lot of DNA with Under Fortunate Stars, but make no mistake — these are very, very different books. Ren hasn’t tried to rehash her debut. She’s expanded on the lore of the Felen War brilliantly while somehow managing to write unique and unexpected flavours into this universe. If her debut was a starter, this feels like the main course.
Her writing style is to die for. The balance she’s struck from a sentence level up between theme and character and plot and world building and concept and context is so rich. It’s such a superbly rendered and well-balanced cocktail of space opera. It reads like Iain M. Banks meets Taran Hunt and belongs on the shelf next to the masterworks of the genre.
And the ending — the way it all comes together so that she resolves the mystery you haven’t even realised she’s been weaving through the story — is one of the most satisfying conclusions to a book I’ve read in ages.
This is a serious contender for my favourite book of the year. It’s as entertaining as it is thought-provoking, immersive and innovative, an absolute delight and a total triumph. It’ll get you thinking, feeling, hoping, all while keeping you riveted to the edge of your seat.
An Unbreakable World breaks the mould. This is next-level awesomeness on an intergalactic scale. Pure storytelling magic.
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