Touched By Starlight: A Futuristic Romance by Linda North

Touched By Starlight: A Futuristic Romance Reviews

• 
  P. Industry

  I’m going to state upfront I found this book deeply problematic, emotionally dishonest, and in places plain boring. Here is the visual illustration of my disillusionment - the difference between the first page of my notes and only five pages later.
  
  
  
  So let me unpack this.
  
  To come into the remainder of her inheritance, Kiernan O'Shay must marry and have children before the arbitrary age of 40. Ariel Thorsen, an assistant professor of physics at the local community collage, has all the requirements Kiernan desires; intelligence (for smart babies), she’s hot, and she has a working vagina. She also has a girlfriend, a stable job, etc, but those things aren't a deal-breaker. And her mother works for the starship company of which Kiernan is president, so there’s some leverage there.
  
  After initially refusing, Ariel is eventually forced into marriage. She lets go of her resentment eventually, and they live happily ever after.
  
  Full disclosure; I am a sucker for the “pretending to be in a relationship for some reason, only for it slowly to become not fake” trope. Love it. But here’s the thing – this isn’t that. This isn’t even “hey, agree to marry me as a business arrangement, no pressure.” This is multiple situations of rape pretending to be romance. Ariel literally gets blackmailed into marrying Keirnan because otherwise her mother will go to jail. I don’t care that Kiernan believes the Mum did it. What kind of person drops all legal charges on a person contingent on the unwilling daughter becoming your trophy bride? How is that not unacceptably coercive? It only becomes more repulsive once we learn that that Mum was framed by Kiernan’s rich uncle so as to ensure Kiernan gets the girl. The uncle is foul, and the author knows it - a shame he drives so much of the plot. There is also a provision into the pre-nuptial agreement setting out minimum amounts of sex that will be provided. ((By the way – if you’re the author, you stupid… I used a very bad word here that I went back and removed... there is nothing in law which gives you the right to sex with your spouse. They have bodily autonomy in every mentally well circumstance. If she or he says no, then that’s it, hands down, full stop. You cannot say something to the contrary, there are enough people out there who believe marital rape is not a thing without adding to that population.))
  
  Compounding the utter moral cesspool which forms the central premise of this novel, Kiernan demands that Ariel give up her girlfriend (and never speak to her again, wtf), her job, and move into her isolated country estate surrounded by Kiernan’s people. (We’re supposed to forgive the ultimatum on the girlfriend thing because Ariel “doesn’t actually love her”. North - you missed the fucking point so hard that I literally cannot believe you are real. The only reason someone tells a partner to do these things is power. And without negotiation and agreement, the power is unacceptably one-sided.)
  
  And that’s kind of the next thing. Twinned around this ulcer, this festering wound, and propping it up in all its corpulence, is the retrograde power dynamics these two lesbians display. Kiernan is “possessive.” It’s, you know, “romantic”. But really it's disgusting. At one point – actually the second time they met - Kiernan just straight up locks Ariel in a room as she is trying to leave, on her starship, because Ariel has said "no" (repeatedly!) to marriage. Spoiler alert; in real life that’s quite illegal, and also terrifying. A human being is not an object. The terms of marriage are not about placing the weaker party in a position of even more weakness so you can exploit them. A relationship is a negotiated space between two people – and a lesbian relationship more than most, because it tends to be absent common cultural markers which assign to each partner certain gendered expectations. This book was sort of aiming for a cheap “take a male/female relationship and replace one with a woman” feel. But the relationship it apes is not a modern m/f relationship – instead it was like one from a novel in the 1940s, where the male partner is controlling. NONE OF THIS IS OKAY BECAUSE THERE ARE LESBIANS.
  
  Okay - so let's get away from the rape and consent issues of the novel and talk about other strange choices.
  
  The cultural background which infuses this is like the 1980s being nostalgic for the 1940s, with gay people and starships. All these people hundreds of years in the future have literally no new cultural elements. Sure they've got cool tech, but no new movies, music, or media to enjoy, etc. Nothing, in fact, past about 1991. This is to the point where everyone has seen Star Wars (even the little children) somehow and all the classic Disney movies (to the point where Ariel is named after “The Little Mermaid”) and her childhood room is decked out with Star Wars memorabilia. There was nothing which made me feel culturally like I was in the future - I found this immersion breaking, which is odd considering, and a bit discouraging. (I.e. I was perfectly willing to believe in domestic abuse existing hundreds of years from now, but not in the longevity of Star Wars. That is depressing.)
  
  Oh yeah, remember how I talked about how Kiernan has that stinking rich thing going? Half-way through this book I was after blood. The "class" of wealthy people to which Kiernan belongs are apparently all shockingly inappropriate in ways that no amount of money could wallpaper over. This probably stemmed from how self-consciously “upper class” the characters were constantly trying to be - the effect is an advertisement for communist revolution. I was humming The Internationale to myself the entire ballroom scene. ((As an aside, this is a world in which inflation never happened; fifty million dollars is still a lot of money hundreds of years from now.))
  
  There is one thing which I will grant to this otherwise completely worthless novel. The character of Ariel is well done. Very well done. She repeatedly points out many of the problems I have, and objects to them. At one point she demands a sharing of power ( - a shame this ends up being the façade of equality in the form of taking turns leading while dancing, not actually bailing from that fucking awful situation, getting her job back and moving out.) Anyway, this is bizarre when you think about it – the author was self-aware enough to know how a person would react, think, and feel about the abusive situations she was placed in, but not enough to think “geesh, Ariel probably shouldn’t fall in love with this person.” I am not sure what to make of that.
  
  Okay, let’s take another step back and talk about why it lost its final star - for its execution. Technically speaking, this book is readable. The writing is stiff though, with certain words and character names repeated closely following one another. The dialogue is clunky. The exposition feels unnatural. This is especially true when the author uses conversations to shoehorn random information into the text. Other sections drag out at length and serve no purpose; a stronger editorial presence was needed to trim the bloat (a good example would be where Kiernan and Ariel are looking at baby photos). Habits from fanfiction have been imported which do a reader no favours – the dreaded “fair-haired beauty“ descriptor, for example. ( Strewth, just use her fucking name.) The author at one point uses the characters to congratulate herself in-text for how clever her pun was. People’s jobs are just… not right. A data-entry lady gets an earned promotion to junior executive, the Chief Engineer of the starship gets a promotion to captain… yeah. An engineer is outside the line for command for a reason; they tend to the boat to the exclusion of everything else, and a Captain to his people and the mission. Quite different skills, and each taking a long time to acquire. This is a minor complaint in the scheme of things, and is only jarring if you know how civilian ships are crewed.)
  
  Look; if you've reached the bottom of this slightly epic rant, then I'm sorry. I really wanted to like this book, I really wanted to tell you that it was something good and new that was a credit to our community but it just isn't.
  
  One star.
• 
  Diane Wallace

  fantastic writing i must say,a hit w/ the scientific lessons in this dptmt,love all this bitchiness was well done lots of high class drama n very good story-telling all in one hummm only downside in some parts over-dramatic n need answers but otherwise the leads had all "heat" for one another ;) all should go out n get this book it's good
• 
  Ameliah Faith

  A Fantastic Remake
  Ariel is a young professor who lives with her mother and two siblings she helps care for. Her life is simple and happy. She rides an antique Harley and spent her childhood putting together models of space ships of her own designs and dreaming of being Hans Solo so she could fly through the universe. She is a down to Earth, wholesome and somewhat innocent woman who has a sunny disposition and a love for life.
  
  Kiernan was a wild child. She was rebellious, a womanizer with a fast ship she used to race around in outer space. She is more worldly and cynical, more practical than romantic. She is a powerful and wealthy woman who needs to have a wife and child by her fortieth birthday in order to gain one hundred percent control of her late grandmother's company so she will be free to follow her dreams of interstellar travel.
  
  The problem is there is no one she knows that she would ever consider marrying, let alone have a child with until her Uncle gives her a file on the lovely Ariel. While reading the file she comes across Ariel's picture and Kiernan's heart skips a beat. She knows this is the woman for her. Unfortunately, Ariel thinks getting married and having a child for business reasons is unacceptable and refuses, in spite of her feelings of attraction. Somehow Kiernan must convince Ariel to help her and she is running out of time.
  
  This book is a remake of Ms North's 'The Dreamer, Her Angel and the Stars'. Although I adored both books, in my opinion this is a much better story. While the plot is the same, 'Touched by Starlight' is a softer, gentler and more romantic story with added details and emotional connections between the characters.
  
  I was completely smitten with both Kiernan and Ariel. I enjoyed the interplay between them. I liked watching them change, letting the control, suspicion and hostility fade as they learn to live with each other and slowly fall in love. I was very pleased at their decisions after they learned they had been betrayed and frightened for them as they fought for their lives. By the end, neither is the woman she once was. Together they compliment each other personalities becoming a beautiful, loving couple.
  
  As with all Ms North's books this one was wonderfully written. Its seductive charm will draw you in until until you are only aware of the drama unfolding in front of you. Before you know it, hours will have passed as you are lost to this magical tale. The excitement, drama, betrayal, danger, suspense and joy, love and intense sexy scenes all combine to make this romance one of my all time favourite books.
• 
  Loek Krancher

  A must read!
  
  It's Sci-Fi, a steamy romance, an adventure and a story with a touch of humor. It was riveting, exciting and gripping. There is misunderstanding, miscommunication, cultural differences but Kiernan and Ariel also had a lot in common. I found myself being drawn into Kiernan. At times she was a real bitch but she also has a very sensitive side. It was wonderful watching their growing attraction and the passion between them was palpable and so hot. There were a lot of surprises in the plot as the story unfolded. The author did a superb job in her description of Celeste and the other ships. She did it without overwhelming technical details. Overall, an excellent story with strong characters and definitely a must read. You are missing out a lot if you don't give it a read.
• 
  Arien

  2 stars. Didn't work for me. Ariel is out of this world beautiful with a huge rack, she has a PhD in physics and she has a wonderful family on top of the fact that she helped raise her siblings while getting that PhD in physics at the same time. In short she's perfect with no faults. Kiernan is all that and also filthy rich, probably the richest woman in the solar system. Kiernan does have control issues (about which she conveniently forgets later on). That's one of my pet peeves, I can't stand these idealized versions of humans, they're completely unrelatable, they don't feel human so I don't care about them.
  
  And they don't stick to their character traits either. Ariel hates Kiernan to the bone but the next day it's fine because she decided they still have to live together so what ever. From deep hate to polite tolerance and even pleasant conversations in a day, like a switch. Same with Kiernan, apparently she has control issues but then she gives in and with the same kind of switch she turns it off without it ever coming up again. That's not how humans work.
  
  The choice of sci-fi theme is also questionable. This could've worked in a contemporary setting just as well if not better. Meh...
  
  Some would also be deterred by the morality of it all. Ariel is literally blackmailed into marriage with requirement for sex in the contract with dire consequences if she does not go for it. I personally didn't care for it either way. Life's tough, you do what you have to do and it's fiction. I'm fine with fictional anything, it doesn't hurt anyone. But it's good to know if you avoid such content where consent is questionable.
  
  I got to the epilogue and didn't even attempt to read it. That's how little I cared about the characters.
• 
  AnnMaree Of Oz

  Kindle Unlimited.
  
  Just wasn't a fan of a lot of dramatic choices that were obvious and antagonistic. Yet allowed to happen despite both women being quite strong willed.
  There's coercive control and nefarious deeds. Yet somehow love blooms? But I never really felt it!
• 
  Dee

  3.5 stars
  
  This is a really difficult review for me to write, I’ve put it off for two days letting things mull around in my head but it hasn’t changed how I feel about the story.
  
  Firstly, the author has a pleasant writing style. The story was easy to read, devoid of annoying errors and obviously a labor of love. I’d very much like to read another story by her, but perhaps not one with a futuristic/sci-fi setting.
  
  I was excited to pick up a book set in 2098. Wow, can you imagine how advanced the world will be in another eighty years? Keirnan’s uncle is 92 years-old and clever enough to hatch an elaborate scheme to find a wife for his 38-year-old niece. I totally believe 90 will be youngish in years to come. I guess the fact he is married to a man much younger helps to keep him agile.
  
  Right off the bat, I knew the era was going to be off when Uncle Theo comes to Ariel’s rescue when her Harley Davidson breaks down, while on route to have her mother sign some school papers for her younger siblings. Electronic signatures are starting to become acceptable nowadays, so it struck me as odd, but I didn’t dwell on it.
  
  Aside from that, scenes with the girls’ apple picking, playing pool, camping, and I quote “having a poo with a view” while camping, and playing chess kept me from remotely believing the year this is supposed to be set in. Honestly, I felt like it was set in the 80s.
  
  I didn’t find the erotic content overly erotic, given the disconnect between the girls. The first scene is rough and raw, fucking, no more, no less. Some people will like it, others perhaps not so much.
  
  In a sense, this is a story of enemies to lovers, even though I had a difficult time feeling any genuine love between the two. When it came out who framed Ariel’s mother I expected more of an outcry. Jack and Keirnan should’ve been outraged, but it’s all cleared up in a few sentences. Family loyalties and all.
  
  The grand finale of murder and mayhem on Celeste struck me as extremely odd. Oh and again a guy has been off work on paid leave after his wife died in a work accident on the craft. Wouldn’t the company have been sued mega bucks?
  
  In summary, this story is far from terrible, it simply didn’t work for me. I freely admit I have an analytical brain so the things that I struggled with may barely make a blip on another reader’s radar. Grab a copy and decide for yourself. I honestly hope you love it.
  
  Copy received in exchange for an honest review
  
  
  
• 
  Miss KittyKat

  First off I loved the writing style and the descriptions. The characters were written with gray areas and human flaws that made them natural and sucked me into the story. No one’s perfect but when motivated you can become a better person. This was especially true for one character that at first I hated but later became my favorite character. A person thinks their life is going the way they want and then run into a wall that stops them in their tracks and forces them to change directions to something they don’t know will be most rewarding. I liked how the relationship between Arial and Kiernan progressed and became equal. The attraction and chemistry was strong between them. This is a very human story with shades of gray, flaws and willing to compromise and open the heart for goodness, equality, and love. Love conquers all. I was slightly disappointed when a support character didn’t get what he deserved.
  This story will be read by me many times.
  
• 
  Annette Mori

  As with her other expanded books, I loved the added scenes. I had forgotten some details of the story and was happy to re-read this book. I enjoyed how both main characters were not perfect and evolved over the course of the book. Well done!
• 
  DR. Amanda Pierce

  Loved it, will not post a review because I am a doctor and have no credentials to review a book but this is a brilliant novel, so moving, thought provoking written by a gifted and talented writer. Can't wait to read more of her work. Best Amanda.
• 
  Ted

  Horrible concept. I love Sci-Fi. I love lesfic. But this was too much. I barely made it 25%. DNF.
• 
  Jan

  I read the first release years ago under another title and liked it. I was eager to read this one. North’s writing is more polished in this. A slow burn falling in love where hate and mistrust turns to love and trust when truth is uncovered and priorities shift.
• 
  Genta Sebastian

  Touched by Starlight by Linda North is well worth your time and money. The characters are very well developed, the plot is intense, and the pacing exciting. Buy a copy. You won't regret it.
• 
  J.S. Fields

  “…she clicked on the notebook expecting to see some heifer that looked like a drag queen…”
  
  This isn’t going to be a normal review. I have a lot of very strong feelings about this book, and they need to couched in a discussion of tropes, and the lesbian fiction arc genre as a whole. Before all that, a quick plot review.
  
  Kiernan is a space tech genius with a sizable fortune. Due to the stipulations of her grandmother’s will (of course), Kiernan must be married and produce a child by her 40th birthday. Ariel (who is, yes, named after The Little Mermaid) is a physics professor. Her mother, a data analyst, gets charged with hacking into Kiernan’s business, and through some very underhanded dealings by Kiernan’s uncle, Ariel is forced to marry Kiernan so that Kiernan will not press charges.
  
  So there’s strike one right there.
  
  Let’s talk about tropes
  
  I love tropes. When I read, I’m not always looking for fresh. Sometimes I want to be comforted. Sometimes I want to relax into the known, to follow a path I know the ending to. It can be fun, even exciting, to see a common heterosexual romance trope turned around to involve a same gender pairing. Hot, even, especially when well done (see Gardner’s Born Out of Wedlock, which contains, and this isn’t hyperbole, almost every lesbian trope out there).
  
  The problem with simply doing a find and replace for a standard het romance trope is that a lot of het romance, especially older het romance, is couched in misogyny and/or rape culture. It’s important that authors be mindful of that when redoing these tropes, as otherwise we can unknowingly perpetuate this culture within our own.
  
  I want to be really clear. There is no place for rape culture. Not in the heterosexual world, and not in the homosexual, either. I’m not talking about rape fantasy, which I would be willing to hear an argument for. Here, specifically, I am talking about a greater culture.
  
  
  
  Doing it right versus doing it wrong
  
  Many of the books I’ve read that rely on heavy-handed tropes (power differentials of different forms, among the most popular being the forced marriage trope), also employ an additional spin. I’m going to keep coming back to Born Out of Wedlock, because 1) I recently read it and 2) it could have gone very, very wrong, but it didn’t. Born had the same set up as Touched by Starlight: forced marriage, power femme, bitchy pseudo-butch (half-butch? moderately butch? Is there a shorter word for ‘butch on the streets, femme in the sheets’?), unbreakable inheritance wills, meddling men.
  
  The fundamental differences between the two are, at the core, intent and consent. For intent, the pairing in Born both have something to gain from the forced marriage. They both have choices. They both have something to lose. The agreement is a business agreement, and there is not even a mention of a forced sex clause. In Touched, sex is stipulated by the contract (by the meddling uncle) and Ariel is coerced into the marriage via threats by her future wife.
  
  See above. Strike one.
  
  For consent, Born operated, for better or for worse, in third person omniscient. Not a particularly popular choice for a narrative, but it made sense in the first bedroom scene, where Addison has aggressive sex with Joanna (our power femme). Because we are in both heads we know Joanna is willing, and while Addison herself is lacking that context (and later laments that she may have raped Joanna), we, the readers, know that not to be the case. It gives conflict, and the ‘heat’ of rape fantasy, without any actual lack of consent. The scene may not be to everyone’s liking, but it was done as well as it could be, and I admire the author’s very clear attempt to remove rape components from such a scene.
  
  In Touched, the word ‘no’ is used repeatedly. Ariel continues to penetrate Kiernan until she is actually in pain. In the orchard scene before this, Kiernan touches Ariel and makes advances despite Ariel having verbally rebuffed her several times. We get access to both sets of thoughts over time, but it is clear in the first sex scene, specifically, the Kiernan wants Ariel to stop, even verbally requests it several times, and Ariel does not.
  
  That’s strike two, and quite frankly I’d have stopped reading at this point if I wasn’t already so determined to finish the book so I could write a proper review.
  
  I don’t know what the author was striving for here. Just because our power femme, who lacked power and was coerced into the marriage, was sexually aggressive to her aggressor to the point of rape does not make rape okay. That they are both women does not make it okay. This would have been rape in a het romance, and it is rape in a same-sex romance. And while I read enough of my grandmother’s bodice rippers to know that falling in love with one’s rapist is a time honored trope, I really expected better from lesbian fiction. We don’t have to be constrained by patriarchal stereotypes. We don’t have to participate in rape culture. We’re better than this.
  
  
  
  And then there’s the writing…
  
  Strike three was the writing. Choppy, often telling (and then showing, and then telling again), with many redundant scenes. The book read more like a fanfic than a novel in that it wasn’t tight. There was too much ‘here’s a chapter in Kiernan POV, and then here is a chapter in Ariel POV, but they cover the same time span’. The scifi aspect felt tacked on and yet, it was the only fresh part of the book. How did we not get scenes with Kiernan racing spaceships? How did we not get scenes with Ariel designing one, or fixing one? Kiernan runs this space tech company and is apparently very good at it, but we get one spaceship scene, at the end of the book, with mostly a ‘the ship is going to explode’ arc and not any real wonder or tech. There are so many places the author could have taken the plot, and yet, it remained simply a power struggle romance.
  
  
  
  It’s not over till the fat lady sings
  
  “…she clicked on the notebook expecting to see some heifer that looked like a drag queen…”
  
  Yes, I lead with this quote segment. I’m repeating it again because these casual acts of body shaming and transphobia have no place in lesbian literature. I know they exist, clearly, but they need to be called out, every time. Since this line came from Kiernan’s POV and Kiernan was well established to be a pretty terrible person (I assume this is why she ‘deserved’ to be raped?), it could be argued that this view reflects the character only. If it were the only offense I might be more forgiving. After all, characters grow and authors often enjoy writing unlikable characters. But this, combined with the deplorable acts by both our main characters, makes me wonder if this was just an offhanded line thrown in without thought for what it actually says.
  
  I’m surprised, frankly, to see a book like from a publisher, especially a queer publisher. It makes me wary not only of other books from this author, but of other books from the publisher as well.
  
  I’d like to look for some way to recommend this book to some subset of readers, but I can’t think of any group applicable. It is possible that those interested in more patriarchal rape fantasy, looking to see that trope with two women, will find this book enjoyable. I’d argue, however, that the sex scenes definitively cross the line between dubcon and full on rape.
• 
  Jane Barcklow

  Love it.
  
  You have attraction, loathing, intrigue , treachery, adventure and romance all in one story. Add to that space travel and near death experience and you get one hell of a great read.
• 
  Kevin Li

  Mega Supreme.
• 
  MissAlice 2U

  The MC's are lovably flawed and flawed in love. Some good plot twists, great reveals, steamy scenes, and a sweet epilogue make for a fun read.
• 
  3DKing

  This book should come with a NO CONSENT warning.
  
  The whole setup is morally and ethically despicable. The journey of Kiernan and Ariel is filled with no-consent situations, in two instances with physical abusement and absolutely no emotional processing. The slight dialogue and inner monologues are way to superficial regarding the traumatic stuff that happens.
  
  The story and the two main characters feel wrong to me.
• 
  Lisa

  talk about forced proximity.
  
  So the set up for this story, with the fauxmance/marriage contract, and then the forced proximity was uncomfortable, as one might expect in this circumstance. The secondary plot that came out of the blue seemed a bit clunky. I enjoyed they getting to know the characters phase and the book overall.
• 
  Heather Lewis

  This author does such a good job fulfilling my space fantasies! The tension and connection (although volatile) develops slowly and sweetly as the characters really get to know each other. But can they really move on and truly connect without trust? Read and find out! It’ll be worth it!
• 
  F.

  I love the fake-to-real relationship trope. But in this instance, I found too many moments of finding the whole thing a bit uncomfortable.
  Still, it's a fun story, set at some point in the future, with space travel, adventure and, of course, romance. Well-written throughout.
• 
  Elizabeth Tanner

  Good futuristic story. Realistic and not corny. Enjoyable plot. I liked getting to know the characters. Two strong women. A little more sex than I would have liked. I Think there could be a sequel and adventure for the two.
• 
  Ginger Miller

  Okay
  
  I don't know what else to write. This book had promise and then went no where. Not a lot of chemistry between the two leads. Difficult story to sell. It could have been good but never seemed to know which way to go. Take the first third of this book and rewrite the rest.