Star Splitter

Matthew J. Kirby

YA Science Fiction

Crash-landed on a desolate planet lightyears from Earth, sixteen-year-old Jessica Mathers must unravel the mystery of the destruction all around her–and the questionable intentions of a familiar stranger. Pulse-pounding YA science fiction from award-winning author Matthew J. Kirby.

For Jessica Mathers, teleportation and planetary colonization in deep space aren’t just hypotheticals–they’re real. They’re also the very real reason her scientist parents left her behind six years ago. Now she is about to be reunited with them, forced to leave behind everyone she knows and loves, to join their research assignment on Carver 1061c, a desolate, post-extinction planet almost 14 lightyears from Earth.

Teleportation is safe and routine in the year 2198, but something seems to have gone very, very wrong. Jessica wakes up in an empty, and utterly destroyed, landing unit from the DS Theseus, the ship where she was supposed to rendezvous with her parents. But Jessica isn’t on the Theseus orbiting Carver 1061c. The lander seems to have crashed on the planet’s surface. Its corridors are empty and covered in bloody handprints; the machines are silent and dark. And outside, in the alien dirt, are the carefully, and recently, marked graves of strangers.

Questions of self-determination and survival collide in this expertly crafted science fiction novel from Edgar Award-winning author Matthew J. Kirby. Kirby builds spine-tingling tension page-by-page in this imaginative and haunting story that spans both space and time.

-Excerpt taken from Goodreads.

Check Goodreads to see the book’s ratings.

My Opinion

(4.5 / 5) I’ve recently come to love space books. Nothing ever goes right and there is always some exciting catastrophe. Throw in a new planet with new beings and plants and I’m hooked! This was no different. 

I absorbed every detail. The twist was fabulously unique and done so well. I’m impressed at the ability to keep each POV separate without confusion. That had to be quite the feat! I loved the characters. Each one had personality and intelligence that added to the story.

That end? Wow! I’m still thinking about it. It’s mind-blowing to imagine if this was reality and the true consequences of it. I love imagining all the different possibilities. My only problem was one scene went on a bit too long but it never lost my attention. I’d absolutely read a series based on this book. I need more!

General content summary: F words= 15, language, evidence of chaos and blood is found, graves are found, deaths and burying them, f/f attraction, parental divorce (previous), seizures (multiple), death (fighting, blood, multiple, screams, injuries, blood), multiple (thousands) of alien bones are found, m/m marriage, choking, fall from a large height (2), parental deaths.

Thank you to Penguin Teen for the gifted copy!

The book releases April 25, 2023.

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