“Dying planets, dangerous conspiracies, and secret romance abound in the second installment of the Devoured Worlds trilogy by award-winning author Megan E. O’Keefe.
Naira and Tarquin have escaped the pull of a dying planet, and are now bound together to find the truth behind the all-powerful Mercator family and the blight that has been killing habitable planets. But the Mercator secrets are buried deep, and Tarquin’s father, the head of Mercator, knows the revolutionaries are on his tail. When Tarquin’s father disappears, taking the rest of his family and the universe’s remaining supply of starship fuel with him, chaos breaks loose between the universe’s ruling families. And Naira’s revolution must be put aside for the sake of humanity’s immediate survival.”
Title: The Fractured Dark
Series: The Devoured Worlds #2
Author: Megan E. O’Keefe
Page Count: 658
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: 4.5/5.0
Date Read: February 3rd, 2024
| The Fractured Dark was a last minute mini buddy read with a friend. We’ve both become fans of Megan E. O’Keefe and both already read The Blighted Stars. I think we both read that one through NetGalley (I’m not sure if he did or not). I really liked the world from the first book so had been wanting to get to the second as well. The stars aligned for us to get to this one in February here. We both opted for the audio version of The Fractured dark which is narrated nicely by Ciaran Saward. The pacing for book two seemed very similar to the first book. There are a good number of characters to keep straight but most of the main characters should be familiar with readers if they’ve already read the first book. The overall pace is average in my opinion. I never felt like we were slogging through data dumps but at the same time this isn’t a read with non-stop action either. There is plenty of ebb and flow throughout book two giving us that action and at other times slowing down a bit to set the scene for what’s happening or what is to come. I think the only caveat to mention is this story can become a bit of a portal mess to an extent. I don’t want to give away much in the way of spoilers but there are plenty of mind bending going on as you try and keep up with what is happening in The Fractured Dark. The world building still seemed on a grand scale even if most of this read seems to take place on stations or ships where we had a large chunk of book one planet side. This world itself is still vast in geographical scope as well as the different factions and cultures being represented in the series. The character development was strong if not a bit twisted and mind bending at times. We have some very interesting character arcs to follow along with in The Fractured Dark. I’m not sure how I can explain this without spoilers but I’ll just recommend readers really pay attention to the characters throughout this book to keep up with things. We have a lot of emotions and growth by several characters which was very nice to see. There are a few head scratching moments and also a couple of mind blowing reveals before all is said and done. All in all this was another solid science fiction story by Megan and I will continue to try and keep up with her releases. Some of her earlier works have hit my radar and I want to try and get through them in the future as well as I’ve had some great reading experiences with her books to date. World Building 4.5/5 Pacing 4.5/5 Character Development 5/5 |
3 Comments
This sounds interesting! I haven’t read the first book, so I’d imagine I would need to do that first. But I’m currently listening to a different book narrated by Ciaran Saward, and I’m loving the narration for that one, so maybe audio would be the best way for me to enjoy these, too!
I visually read the first book as an eARC and really enjoyed it. This one just had a lot more twists and turns going on than the first.
Oh, cool! I’m glad both were enjoyable books.