The Seeker Star

Bigelow's middling follow-up to The Daughter Star ambitiously tackles a wide range of themes, including faith, women's rights, and genocide. Violet Grayline's sisters, Marta and Beth, disappeared without a trace during the Haven wars. Stuck on gravity-heavy Nea, Violet doesn't believe she can find them herself, but when her husband divorces her, she realizes she has nothing to lose by leaving her home planet in search of answers. Relying on scanty information and traveling vast distances, Violet learns to trust her own instincts as she uncovers a 300-year-old interplanetary conspiracy that has hidden the truth about long-abandoned Earth. She must also reconcile herself to building a relationship with an alien being who wants uncomfortably close proximity to her innermost thoughts. The novel's slow pace and overabundance of characters with differing political goals detract from what could be an exciting premise. Instead, the story feels dull and gray, like Nea's sky. (Nov.)