Zenith by Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings

| ISBN: 978-0373212590 | Pages: 544 |

Publication Date: January 16, 2018 | Source: NetGalley

| Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars |

★★★☆

Most know Androma Racella as the Bloody Baroness, a powerful mercenary whose reign of terror stretches across the Mirabel Galaxy. To those aboard her glass starship, Marauder, however, she's just Andi, their friend and fearless leader.
But when a routine mission goes awry, the Marauder's all-girl crew is tested as they find themselves in a treacherous situation and at the mercy of a sadistic bounty hunter from Andi's past.
Meanwhile, across the galaxy, a ruthless ruler waits in the shadows of the planet Xen Ptera, biding her time to exact revenge for the destruction of her people. The pieces of her deadly plan are about to fall into place, unleashing a plot that will tear Mirabel in two.
Andi and her crew embark on a dangerous, soul-testing journey that could restore order to their shipor just as easily start a war that will devour worlds. As the Marauder hurtles toward the unknown, and Mirabel hangs in the balance, the only certainty is that in a galaxy run on lies and illusion, no one can be trusted.

This is going up a bit late, but at least it's still being posted on release day! Happy book birthday to Zenith - this long awaited novel is out right now and you can click the cover up above to head to Amazon to pick up a copy if you're interested :)

Zenith was a novel that I wasn't sure if I was going to read because it wasn't a storyline that typically captured my attention but I was tempted because I have been a huge fan of Sasha's channel for years. That being said, this review isn't swayed by that fact, I'm still going to deliver my honest thoughts. Upon first reading it (note: I did not read the short version published earlier), I was actually really in love with the story.

Everything felt incredibly fast paced and I generally really liked the characters and the world. Then, came the processing period, the time that comes after finishing a novel where I try to gather my thoughts. I flipped back through the novel for some reference points and in that process came to some realizations that I hadn't noticed before.

So the obvious thing is that this novel is written by two authors which mean two different writing styles. While I haven't read anything by Lindsay Cummings and this is Sasha's "debut," I noticed a couple of discrepancies with the writing style that make it very clear that this novel was written by two people. While that may seem like stating the obvious, with these moments, the story itself didn't flow as well as it could have which affected the impact the plot was aiming to achieve.

Jumping into the world - Zenith is a space odyssey and while I'm not a huge fan of space-centered plots, I did enjoy the descriptions, the first couple of times. There are several passages that seem overly repetitive which added to the overall length of the novel. As I was reading this on my Kindle, I didn't know that the entire novel was 544 pages until I checked Goodreads. For me, this can be both a good or bad point - I was able to lose myself in the story enough that it didn't feel like it was dragging, but there were a lot of moments that could have condensed if not for these repetitions.

In addition to the world, Zenith brings to life a wide cast of characters that are honestly just so lovable. I admired Androma's strength at times but felt that she could have grown more of a backbone. I loved the rest of the crew, and how the authors created such an awesome group of fearless heroines. Dex was a headache at times but you can't help but love him. And Valen...oh Valen...I have no words.

I feel like this review goes back and forth but that's honestly just how my thoughts are towards Zenith. I did enjoy reading through the novel, but going back, I'm noticing things that I didn't pick up on before that would typically have bothered me so my verdict is left kind of hanging. I do believe this will be an exciting series and I'm interested to see how it continues.