Information
Goodreads: Heavenbreaker
Series: Unnamed #1
Age Category: New Adult (Sci-fi)
Source: Library
Published: May 21, 2024
Official Summary
Bravery isn't what you do. It's what you endure.
The duke of the powerful House Hauteclare is the first to die. With my dagger in his back.
He didn't see it coming. Didn't anticipate the bastard daughter who was supposed to die with her mother—on his order. He should have left us with the rest of the Station's starving, commoner rubbish.
Now there's nothing left. Just icy-white rage and a need to make House Hauteclare pay. Every damn one of them.
Even if it means riding Heavenbreaker—one of the few enormous machines left over from the War—and jousting against the fiercest nobles in the system.
Each win means another one of my enemies dies. And here, in the cold terror of space, the machine and I move as one, intent on destroying each adversary—even if it's someone I care about. Even if it's someone I'm falling for.
Only I'm not alone. Not anymore.
Because there's something in the machine with me. Something horrifying. Something…more.
And it won't be stopped.
Review
Heavenbreaker is a riveting sci-fi novel that brings readers to a space station where refugees have fled from Earth -- and yet managed to bring all their biases and classism with them. Protagonist Synali is determined to bring down the noble house that would have killed her for being a bastard, and just maybe all the rest of the nobles who use the lower classes for their own ends. The result is a story rich with action but also commentary about identity, justice, and what it means to be human.
I drawn in from the start by the description of the nobles' interesting hobby: space jousting in giant mech suits that they reserve only for the pureblooded to ride. It quickly becomes clear that there are secrets about the suits that not even all the nobles know, and half the fun of the book is unraveling the layers of mystery along with Synali. The descriptions of the actual jousts were a little much for me, as Synali enters a tournament and her ultimate goal is to win at least seven times -- and the author describes each of her bouts in detail. While Wolf does try to fold in new information and things Synali learns about the "steeds" and "what it means to ride" in each of these scenes, tries to vary the techniques taht Synali and her opponents use, I admit to skimming some of these. I guess I'm not much of a blow-by-blow reader when it comes to reading several different jousting scenes, especially as there was also a lot of description of Synali practicing in the steed.
However, the overarching plot kept me turning the pages. There are so many political players and so many secrets that it was really a joy to continuously find out that whatever Synali and the reader thought was true really was not the whole story. Even at the end of the book, it's clear there's more to be revealed in the sequel.
I was a little thrown off by the book being described by some readers as a "romantic fantasy." First, the space setting, enemy alien invaders who had attacked Earth, prominent use of AI, etc. make this strongly a sci-fi book for me rather than fantasy. Second, the romance is not fully there, at least in book one. What is there reads a bit as instalove. The love interest, although he gets some good lines and a cute scene here and there, has absolutely no reason to be in love the protagonist, considering he barely speaks to her (her choice) and he knows practically nothing about her. The narrative voice is doing a lot of work to convince the reader there's something here because it just isn't actually shown in the story.
There are some other small flaws in the logic of the story that I can see if I think about the book too closely, but I had so much fun reading it that I don't really care. This isn't perfect, but it's very engaging. I would love to read book two.
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