Reviewed by Dee
TITLE: Touched by Starlight
AUTHOR: Linda North
PUBLISHER: Sapphire Books Publishing
LENGTH: 390 pages
RELEASE DATE: January 22, 2016
BLURB:
Kiernan O’Shay has dreams of building light-speed spaceships. This is achievable if she owns Stellardyne, the space freighter manufacturer founded by her grandmother. All she is required to do is fill the stipulations in her grandmother’s will of marrying and producing an heir by her fortieth birthday. Ariel Thorsen is content with life and her career as a physics professor. She meets Kiernan at a dinner celebrating her mother’s promotion to an executive in Stellardyne. Ariel is offered monetary wealth if she marries Kiernan and bears an heir. Ariel is appalled. Love should bind two people together-not wealth. But when Kiernan accuses Ariel’s mother of corporate espionage, Ariel feels she has no choice but to accept Kiernan’s marriage proposal on the condition that no charges are brought against her mother.
Can love grow when trust isn’t in the equation?
*Edited and previously published as The Dreamer, Her Angel, and the Stars*
REVIEW:
This is a really difficult review for me to write, I’ve put it off for two days letting things mull around in my head but it hasn’t changed how I feel about the story.
Firstly, the author has a pleasant writing style. The story was easy to read, devoid of annoying errors and obviously a labor of love. I’d very much like to read another story by her, but perhaps not one with a futuristic/sci-fi setting.
I was excited to pick up a book set in 2098. Wow, can you imagine how advanced the world will be in another eighty years? Keirnan’s uncle is 92 years-old and clever enough to hatch an elaborate scheme to find a wife for his 38-year-old niece. I totally believe 90 will be youngish in years to come. I guess the fact he is married to a man much younger helps to keep him agile.
Right off the bat, I knew the era was going to be off when Uncle Theo comes to Ariel’s rescue when her Harley Davidson breaks down, while on route to have her mother sign some school papers for her younger siblings. Electronic signatures are starting to become acceptable nowadays, so it struck me as odd, but I didn’t dwell on it.
Aside from that, scenes with the girls’ apple picking, playing pool, camping, and I quote “having a poo with a view” while camping, and playing chess kept me from remotely believing the year this is supposed to be set in. Honestly, I felt like it was set in the 80s.
I didn’t find the erotic content overly erotic, given the disconnect between the girls. The first scene is rough and raw, fucking, no more, no less. Some people will like it, others perhaps not so much.
In a sense, this is a story of enemies to lovers, even though I had a difficult time feeling any genuine love between the two. When it came out who framed Ariel’s mother I expected more of an outcry. Jack and Keirnan should’ve been outraged, but it’s all cleared up in a few sentences. Family loyalties and all.
The grand finale of murder and mayhem on Celeste struck me as extremely odd. Oh and again a guy has been off work on paid leave after his wife died in a work accident on the craft. Wouldn’t the company have been sued mega bucks?
In summary, this story is far from terrible, it simply didn’t work for me. I freely admit I have an analytical brain so the things that I struggled with may barely make a blip on another reader’s radar. Grab a copy and decide for yourself. I honestly hope you love it.
RATING: 
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