In Dane Reavers’ new novel, Aurora’s Edge, a teenager escapes a dead-end life in the Dredges by slipping aboard a spaceship. When there’s a disaster on board, she thinks quickly and pretends to be a new engineer. Elara starts putting her skills to work, which means a legit cover story and job, but she slowly starts to release all these repairs are not random, there may be someone sabotaging the ship. And that means the only suspects are on board with her…

I’ve enjoyed this kind of locked-room mystery feeling before, and here it’s crossed with the different backstories of the ship’s crew and their reasons for being here. (Kari Charsper’s The Starliner Murders is another engaging scifi adventure where the villain must be someone on the ship, and everyone has their own reasons to lie.)

When she stows away, Elara Vayle hopes that the physical distance between the Dredges and life on the Aurora will help her restart her life and handle her grief. The Imperial Dominion directly caused her parents’ deaths, as well as contributing to the massive inequality that creates the Dredges.  So when she meets someone who represents the Dominion, she has no interest in interacting or cooperating.

Over time, Elara will begin to see people around her, from the Captain to her new crewmates as complicated people with their own pasts and motivations.  This works as YA fiction, as our young protag learns to see other people as complex and flawed, and also works to introduce the scifi world to readers. I don’t want to share too much of the setting, because a lot of the book’s enjoyment comes from discovering the world of Aurora’s Edge.  I can say, at least, that Elara’s work in starship repair and engineering (and, ok, breaking and entering, too) sets up the future tech clearly and well, without a lot of infodumping explanation. The powers and structure of the world is revealed through Elara’s conversations with others and with her mental AI companion, and again,  it’s explained naturally, without tedious infodumping.

Overall, Aurora’s Edge is an engaging adventure story with a compelling protagonist in a complex, lively scifi world.

Thanks to the author for the review copy. Opinions on my blog are my own, as always.