Synopsis:
An outlaw lost at the edge of the galaxy and an honorable commander who will have to risk everything to save her, Parallax is a heart-pounding, slow burn space opera romance packed with action, adventure, banter, and found family.
The tenuous alliances of the United Tribal Axis have fractured, breaking humanity into warring factions. Hinata finds himself fighting a losing war against an opponent that doesn’t play by the rules. While Freyja focuses all of her efforts on uncovering the origin of the signal that she is convinced is the key to revealing the source of the chaos ripping their society apart. Upon returning from an outer rim mission, Freyja realizes that Skyla hasn’t received a single communication they’ve sent in months and must convince Hinata to abandon his post to mount a rescue mission in search of the missing captain. But there are forces at play larger than any of them realize.
Review:
With Umbra last year and now Parallax, which released just last month, Amber Toro has created a fascinating sci-fi universe with deep and layered protagonists who I will be following as long as she decides to keep writing books.
I read the first book in the Sentient Stars series a couple of months back and then dove into Parallax once the summer hit. Both share a slow-burn romance quality that permeates throughout, but there is more than just love stories here. Toro has set up multiple sci-fi storylines that keep the plot moving forward along with compelling and blood-pounding action.
When I saw the “Romance” angle was a selling feature and that there were three main point-of-view characters, I was initially worried it would be a love triangle. I’m happy to see that Toro didn’t go the easy route, instead crafting interesting backstories to set the three leads up with separate motivations and desires.
Umbra set everything up with Freyja, Skyla, and Hinata sharing the spotlight. Throughout these books, Toro weaves their stories together — literally — with each of them as POV characters, bouncing from one to the other with each chapter. Even then, the narrative keeps pushing forward, almost willing the characters to stay involved in each other’s lives in the process.
With just a few books under her belt, Toro is already establishing herself as a writer to pay attention to. I’m looking forward to seeing what she does next in the Sentient Stars books and what mysteries our characters solve in their futuristic look at humanity. In fact, the title of the series gives us even more. Some of the vessels in Toro’s universe have advanced artificial intelligences, imprinting on a few of our characters basically at birth. So that means the ships themselves are their own characters with their own unique motivations, providing a little more sauce to the wonderfully plated meal put before us.
Now, she does a lot right, but Parallax isn’t perfect. I dinged the final score just a little based on supporting characters and the greater storyline. Our main three characters are expertly crafted, but unfortunately that means that some of the side characters are left a little one-dimensional. The strength of our leads definitely covers it up, but a little more backstory on a few of them would be helpful, I think. Also, since the entirety of the book is from three characters’ perspective, we sometimes don’t see what’s happening in the rest of the universe until our characters get there. That isn’t always a bad thing, but with an expansive space empire, it seems a little smallish at times.
But those are very small nitpicks. I had a great time with Parallax, especially seeing our characters separate at the end of Umbra and how that affects them and ultimately brings them back together in this sequel. Toro expertly leaves us wanting more at the end, and I will be waiting for book 3, whenever it shows up on my Kindle.
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