Reviews

Star's End by Cassandra Rose Clarke

le13anna's review

3.0

the beginning was better than the end...

brucefarrar's review

5.0

The four moons that orbit the gas giant Coromina I have been terraformed for the human citizen-employees of the Coromina Corporation which owns the system. It’s founder Phillip Coromina has been its CEO for three centuries, but he has a fatal disease. His final wish is for his eldest daughter and heir Esme is to bring her three sisters home before he dies. Esme is extremely skeptical that she’ll be able to accomplish this assignment. She fears that her estranged stepsisters won’t want to see him. She’s not even sure that they’ll even want to talk to her, and she has no idea where two of them are. They could be anywhere on the Four Sisters, as the terraformed moons are called. As the person in charge of Genetics for the Corporation, she has her own work that needs to be done. There’ve been several security breaches recently. That’s a big worry since the Corporation’s main source of income is producing genetically modified soldiers.

Clarke switches from third person narration of Esme’s search for her sisters, to extended first person scenes from Esme’s childhood at the family estate, Star’s End. These reveal her relations with her sisters and their emotionally cold father. After her stepmother’s death, Esme vows to take care of her sisters and is especially disturbed when Isabel, the youngest, mysteriously vanishes. Clarke skillfully presents a page-turning thriller in a realistic extraterrestrial setting that has a really well done brooding sense of menace.