Reviewed by Chris
TITLE: To See the Sun 
AUTHOR: Kelly Jensen
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
LENGTH: 293 pages
RELEASE DATE: August 11, 2018
BLURB:
Survival is hard enough in the outer colonies—what chance does love have?
Life can be harsh and lonely in the outer colonies, but miner-turned-farmer Abraham Bauer is living his dream, cultivating crops that will one day turn the unforgiving world of Alkirak into paradise. He wants more, though. A companion—someone quiet like him. Someone to share his days, his bed, and his heart.
Gael Sonnen has never seen the sky, let alone the sun. He’s spent his whole life locked in the undercity beneath Zhemosen, running from one desperate situation to another. For a chance to get out, he’ll do just about anything—even travel to the far end of the galaxy as a mail-order husband. But no plan of Gael’s has ever gone smoothly, and his new start on Alkirak is no exception. Things go wrong from the moment he steps off the shuttle.
Although Gael arrives with unexpected complications, Abraham is prepared to make their relationship work—until Gael’s past catches up with them, threatening Abraham’s livelihood, the freedom Gael gave everything for, and the love neither man ever hoped to find.
REVIEW:
A mail-order-bride style space western?…yes, please!
An elegant mix of the western and sci-fi genres, To See the Sun tells a story that at its heart readers will be familiar with, but told in such beautiful and enticing ways that they will hardly care. I grew up on these kinds of stories, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I have always had a weak spot for the kinds of romances where two people find themselves tied to each other, and yet have to struggle with being stuck with a virtual stranger, in new and unsure places. And this story gives me all that, but throws in the unfamiliar, and beautifully bleak, landscape of Alkirak as a backdrop to the slow and at times painful love story of Bram and Gael. Nothing here is new, but it is painted in such detail as to make it feel almost touchable.
The bare-bones of the story is such: Gael, having gotten himself into a rather sticky situation on his home planet, decides it is best to flee, and flee quickly. Trouble is, fleeing is kinda expensive. Especially for someone who is one bad decision (that he mostly likely just made) from being forced into slavery. But it turns out that in the outer edges of the galaxy there are people who are lonely enough to pay for the chance of companionship. And Gael is just desperate enough to take the chance on one Abraham Bauer–a farmer on the lonely and hard world of Alkirak. But not everything is as it seems–or how either of them hopes–when Gael touches down on his new home. Desperate to make it work, though, both Bram and Gael must try to find a way to fit into each other’s lives…before their pasts, or the planet itself, makes the decision for them.
These kinds of sci-fi stories have to be my favorite. The ones that are not all about saving the universe, or declaring just how beyond hope humanity is, have a way of sticking with me long past reading. The more personal scope of this book has more impact because it is about simple things. Hard, at times painful, but easily understandable to almost everyone. Wanting to escape a hopeless situation, learning to trust the kindness of strangers, finding a family and fighting tooth and nail for it. All these are things that people get on a personal level. And the fact that they just happen to take place on some dangerous planet in a galaxy far far away is just spice to make the story stand out a bit.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adored the world building in this book. Both Gael’s home before meeting Bram, and Alkirak are incredibly well painted in this story. The landscapes…that first sunset…I loved it. It was so damn beautiful, even if it lived only in my mind. I have a huge fucking weakness for space, and this book did an excellent job of feeding that. And the fact that there was so much harshness to counteract that beauty is what made it just that little bit more real.
One of the bigger twists in this story is a bit of a spoiler, so I won’t go into detail about it, but I do love how it played out over the course of the story. It could have felt very forced, but it never did. It felt honest and as real as the rest of the story, and in the end that is all that I can ask.
I honestly have no complaints here. Some people might not like the slow-burn nature of the romance, but not only did I find it incredibly enthralling…but it felt true to the characters and the situation. The push and pull between Bram and Gael worked. As their connection and trust grew, so did the chemistry. I think I would have had a hard time buying anything else. And yeah, there was that bit at the end where I wanted to smack Bram, but it worked itself out.
Overall this was incredibly well written, and at times heart-breakingly beautiful. While I’ll fully cop to being a sucker for a good scifi, the romance here was nothing to sniff at. Add that all together and you are left with something that keeps you glued to the page and desperate to find the HEA buried in the cold and unforgiving heart of Alkirak.
RATING: 
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