A review by shellycampbellauthor
Azura Ghost by Essa Hansen

5.0

Wow. Just wow. It’s tough to be elegant with words here with the disorienting wave of what is certain to be the biggest book hang-over of all time already numbing me. I loved all the characters in Nophek Gloss, Caiden most fiercely of all—Sorry En! So, how ironic is it that Azura Ghost, the follow up to the insanely imaginative found family space opera, feels like coming home to a family that I didn’t know how much I’d missed. Essa’s characters are complex multiverses unto themselves, unique, individual, and driven by cosmic forces—but most of all—utterly relatable. You’ll find it impossible not to be tied up in the web of conflict they face, rooting for each of them in turn, wincing at their battle injuries and aching along with them through their losses. Hansen’s knack for magically plunking your consciousness into the very fibres of her characters is uncanny. You're not reading about them. You’re totally immersed, exhausted and desperate, along for the ride. If Nophek Gloss blew you away, Azura Ghost will put you back together and shatter you all over again. The universe building is staggeringly unique and imaginative, the plot balances cosmic scale with individual relationships on a knife blade. This book is overwhelmingly big and comfortingly personal all at the same time, and I’ve no idea what kind of energy Essa Hansen pulled out of the luminiferity to create it, but she is a writer with a fresh, incredible talent like no other I’ve seen. I’ll be reading this again, in many different universes, on several separate timelines, and I have a feeling I’ll absorb something new each time. Bravo.