Rachel Reviews: To Desire the Stars by Venus Campbell

There's a contentious succession taking place on your home planet and you need a place to hide out or you could lose your life. Earth is your chosen destination and with your alien technology, you can cloak your ship, generate everything you need to blend in and lie low, with little to worry you.

Unless you happen to bump into someone in a coffee shop who just might alter the course of your stay on Earth or even perhaps in Jarren's case when he meets Lissa, the whole course of your very existence.

This is pretty much where the book starts after a short preamble which introduces us to Jarren and his rather tricky situation where he has an overambitious cousin with eyes on rulership, a situation which requires Jarren to regroup and quickly, before he's eliminated.

Lissa has no idea when she accidentally tips coffee on Jarren what her clumsy spillage will mean for her but she soon does. In Campbell's book, it's all about the scent as her Lyntan race, of which Jarren is the leader, are themselves led by their noses especially in matters of mating and unfortunately, in Jarren's case, as a means to find those who are being hunted.

Lissa is an ideal partner for Jarren and he knows it from his first sniff but he has to subdue his scent or risk being found by alien bounty hunters.

But when they subsequently discover they will be working closely together, can Jarren keep his desire in check and is Lissa, by her proximity to him in serious space danger?

Parts of this book were great: I loved the way that it started and I think that Campbell brought it to a satisfying climax. I think her imagined world and the idea of scent worked well, like alien pheromones, and I got what she was trying to do with the considerations that Lissa has concerning past relationships, her daughter, Jasmine and now, her future which potentially could be VERY different indeed.

There is a lull in the middle of the book where Campbell establishes more characters and places beyond our own and again, it's needed but it dragged a little for me.

However, the book as a whole is well-written with a flow and purpose throughout so for the fan of fantasy/space romance looking for a quick summer read, then this is perfect.

Rachel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

This was first published on Reedsy Discovery where I was privileged to read it as an ARC: