Review: Starlight's Edge - Susan Waggoner

Zee has given up her entire world to be with David, confident that love and their desire to be together will overcome all obstacles. But is love enough?

Beneath its lustrous surface and dazzling technology, New Earth is full of challenges, including David's wealthy, powerful and highly competitive family, whose plans for David's future don't include anyone like Zee.

As Zee struggles to adapt to her new life, she must also find a way to re-establish her career as an Empath and fledgling Diviner. And then when David vanishes on a mission to Pompeii on the eve of the Vesuvius eruption, Zee realises that he is in mortal danger. Will she be able to rescue him in time?

A remarkably gripping novel about star-crossed love and future life.

Timedance Series:
Neptune's Tears
Starlight's Edge

Visit Susan Waggoner's page on Goodreads for more information

Review:
Starlight's Edge is the second book in Susan Waggoner's Timedance series and I can't review it without including spoilers for the first book so please don't continue reading this review if you haven't already read Neptune's Tears.

At the end of the first book we saw Zee agree to leave everything - her home, her family and her friends - behind to travel 1,500 years into the future to be with David. She knows that her journey to New Earth can only ever be one way and that she will never be able to return so now that she has finally been cleared to make the trip she is both excited and apprehensive. Everything is different on New Earth and she struggles to fit in and make it her home. It is clear that David's family don't want her around and she can't even find a job because disease and illness are a thing of the past and Empaths are no longer needed. She loves David but she is feeling lost and lonely. Zee isn't the kind of girl to sit around complaining though so she sets out to make friends with other Time emigrants and to find a way to make use of her Empathic and Divining abilities. It is when David is on another mission, this time to Pompeii just before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, that Zee has a vision and knows he is in danger but can she find a way to get back there in time to save him?

As with the previous book I found Starlight's Edge to be a very fast paced and easy to read story. Susan Waggoner has created a brilliant futuristic world and I enjoyed seeing the details of how people lived their day to day lives. The trials and tribulations of the Time emigrants was really well thought out and I enjoyed seeing Zee getting to meet different people from throughout history and watching them all start to find a place for themselves on New Earth. I also really enjoyed the trip further back in time to Pompeii and the mystery over who was trying to harm David and whether Zee would be able to help him in time. I've enjoyed both of these books and would definitely be happy to revisit these characters again if the author decides to continue the series. There is so much scope when it comes to time travel and you really could take these characters anywhere. What I love is that these books are both complete books and there are no horrible cliffhanger endings but there is definitely room to revisit them in the future.

One thing I do wish is that these books were a bit longer and more detailed though. I was having so much fun exploring New Earth and learning about the different technology and customs that I was almost disappointed to leave it to travel back in time again. Although I enjoyed the trip to Pompeii I would have liked to have spent more time there, that section of the story felt a little rushed and could easily have been expanded upon to give readers more background information about that time period. There were actually quite a few places where I felt the story could easily have been expanded and I would have enjoyed it even more if that was the case. Having said that these books do make very good quick reads and are perhaps a great way to get more reluctant or slightly younger readers to give the stories a chance. If you enjoy time travel and like getting to explore futuristic worlds with fascinating technology then this is definitely a series you'll enjoy and I'm sure fans of Neptune's Tears will enjoy Starlight's Edge even more.

Source: Received from Piccadilly Press in exchange for an honest review

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Review: Neptune's Tears - Susan Waggoner

It's 2218 and Zee McAdams is in her second year as a healing empath at a busy London hospital. When a mysterious young man becomes her patient, Zee's hard-won calm is pierced. Her attraction is complicated by the fact that David Sutton is an alien, a group whose presence - and purpose - on Earth is deeply mistrusted. When London and other cities experience a wave of anarchist attacks, Zee and David are brought even closer together. The more time Zee spends with David, the more she likes him - and the more questions she has. Even as their relationship deepens, Zee knows that David is still hiding something from her.

Will Zee have the courage to follow her heart, no matter where it takes her?

A remarkably gripping novel about star-crossed love and future life.

Timedance Series:
Neptune's Tears
Starlight's Edge

Visit Susan Waggoner's page on Goodreads for more information

Review:
Neptune's Tears is the start of Susan Waggoner's Timedance series which is set 200 years into the future. Zee is training as an empath and working at a London hospital where she helps patients heal using her abilities. She loves her job and enjoys helping people so the last thing she is looking for is a relationship, especially when falling in love could have a devastating effect on her powers. She meets David when he is injured and under her care in the hospital, although it is forbidden for her to get involved with a patient she finds herself unable to forget him even when he has been released to return home. As their paths keep crossing they fall naturally into a relationship but there is more than one obstacle in their path. The main one being that David is an alien and he is only on Earth for a limited time before he will have to return to his home world and leave Zee behind forever.

I found Neptune's Tears was a really fast paced and fun book to read, there was a lot I liked about the world that the author has created and I was fascinated by the idea of empaths who are able to heal people with their powers. I enjoyed reading about a future where no major disaster has taken place and the world hasn't fallen apart around our ears, it meant the author was able to include lots of cool technology without having an apocalyptic feel to the story. That doesn't mean lives are easy though and there are a group of anarchists who seem determined to cause terror amongst the population and they have quite terrifying weapons at hand to do it with.

I found the main characters very easy to like, Zee is an admirable and brave young woman and I enjoyed learning about her abilities. She spends a lot of time with one patient in particular and I really liked the grandmotherly role that Ellie played in the story. Often YA books don't have positive adult role models so it made a nice change to see that here. David is more of a mystery and we don't find out much about him until close to the end of the book but I still liked him and I wanted to dig deep and learn all his secrets.

Although there were a lot of things I liked about the story I do think there was room for improvement. This is a very short book and I really felt it could have been so much better if certain points had been expanded on further. I really wanted some background information on how some humans had gained empathic abilities, where did these powers come from? Why are only some humans effected? I just needed a bit more depth to the world building to make the story more believable. The other main issue was with the romance between Zee and David. I actually quite liked them as a couple but because their romance is given very little page time and we only find out about most of the dates they go on because Zee discusses them with Ellie. Seeing everything second hand like that made their relationship feel like a major case of instalove when in reality events played out over a time period of several months. I really would have liked to spend more time with them as a couple so that I could have felt more connected with them and invested in their relationship.

In spite of those problems I did enjoy reading Neptune's Tears and I am looking forward to seeing what happens next. There was always something happening and I seemed to fly through the book incredibly quickly. There is also an interesting twist towards the end that I can't wait to see play out in the sequel Starlight's Edge.

Source: Received from Piccadilly Press in exchange for an honest review

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