Under Different Stars

From School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up—Just before her 18th birthday, as she’s looking forward to the freedom from the abusive foster care system that milestone will bring, Kricket Hollowell is retrieved from Earth and taken to her home planet, Ethar. Discovering she is not of Earth, that she is a priestess in one culture on Ethar and believed to have committed a crime by another group of Etharians (the two cultures from which her real, Etharian parents came), having to learn the customs and constraints of life on Ethar, and falling in love with one of the soldiers who brought her from Earth provide numerous challenges for Kricket. She is at the center of conflict between the two cultures, sought as a consort by a man she could never love, and struggling to come to terms with her “gifts,” which allow her to determine if someone is lying and to see into the future. This engaging story, the first in a series, has interesting characters and world-building that listeners will enjoy. Kate Rudd narrates, providing an impressive array of voices for the different characters, allowing listeners to easily understand who is speaking. VERDICT Fans of sci-fi romance will eagerly await the sequel.—Cynthia Ortiz, Hackensack High School, NJ

Under Different Stars (Kricket Book 1)

Kricket Hollowell never wished upon stars. She was too busy hiding in plain sight, eluding Chicago’s foster care system. As her eighteenth birthday approaches, she now eagerly anticipates the day she’ll stop running and finally find her place in the world.

That day comes when she meets a young Etharian soldier named Trey Allairis, who has been charged with coming to Earth to find Kricket and transport her to her true home. As danger draws close, he must protect her until she can wield the powers she cannot use on Earth…and he soon realizes that counting a galaxy of stars would be easier than losing this extraordinary girl.

Kyon knows the powerful depths of Kricket’s gifts—gifts he’ll control when he takes her for his tribe and leads the forces that will claim Ethar and destroy his enemies, starting with Trey Allairis. Now, Kricket faces the most difficult choice of her life: whether to wage a battle for survival or a fight for love.

Winner of four 2014 utopYA Awards, including Best Book of the Year and Best Sci-Fi Book of the Year.

Revised edition: This edition of Under Different Stars includes editorial revisions.

About the Author

Amy A. Bartol is the award-winning and bestselling author of the Kricket Series and the Premonition Series, the latter of which includes the books Inescapable, Intuition, Indebted,Incendiary, and Iniquity. She lives in Michigan with her husband and their two sons.