Thank you to Tor Books for providing this book as a digital galley in exchange for an honest review!
One Sentence Summary:
Included in review.
My Review:
Let me tell you, I love Winter’s Orbit, but I loved this book even more. Winter’s Orbit has that murder mystery element, but I was still a little confused and not so engrossed that I could speed through it. This was completely different. With Ocean’s Echo, we enter with Tennal, a (mind)reader being conscripted by his legislator aunt . He’s supposed to be forced to mentally sync with an architect (mind compulsion person), but the architect, Surit, actually has morals and doesn’t want to do that. Together, they have to uncover some government conspiracies regarding Surit’s rebel mother and why they were supposed to be synced in the first place.
When I tell you I loved these characters so much!!! Winter’s Orbit had great characters too, but Ocean’s Echo was fun on another level. Surit, Tennal, and Istara are forever faves. Their motivations and personalities were consistent and clear, and beyond that, I just loved reading about them. Everyone was super complex and easy to read about.
Relationships. Gah. Amazing. The mutual adoration and love in this book? Unmatched. All of the friends are amazing, and the romantic relationships are, too. Tennal and Surit have a logical, nonlinear path to romance, and they value each other and their safety and happiness so much. They have priorities, too! No one is putting romance before survival, and they have the tough conversations.
Plot and world-building were surprisingly good for me reading a sci-fi book. I understood practically everything happening, AND I enjoyed it. One thing I felt both good and bad about was the pacing. Somehow, the last 60% of this book all feels like the last 20% of another book. Consequently, the last 20% was slightly incoherent and felt like the last 5% of the second book in a trilogy. However, this didn’t affect my enjoyment at all and at times made it more readable.
I’d DEFINITELY recommend this book. It’s definitely not a sequel or spin-off to Winter’s Orbit, so I don’t know why the cover looks like one, but it’s amazing and even better. Ocean’s Echo is great for fans of sci-fi and healthy romance that isn’t in a typical romance novel.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
The Fiction Feature 