The Blighted Stars

4 stars - Spoilers !  Space opera following Tarquin Mercator, a geologist and member of a powerful family whose mining  may be responsible for the destruction of habitable planets. While on on an expedition to a new planet, he will cross paths with Naira Sharp, a revolutionist who disguises herself as Tarquin's bodyguard to put an end to this fateful expedition. 
Overall I liked this book!!  The world building was great with queernorm elements that I always love to see, and it was definitely one of my favourite things about this book.  I really liked the plot too especially the sentient parasites as the antagonist and how it slowly invaded the humans. There's a really element of terror about it that also echoes what we have in real life with viruses and pandemics.  The main characters were both compelling to read through their own point of views , and I did like that some side characters also had their own chapters so it gave us a more complete understanding of the events.  However, I felt some world building elements weren't explained enough while others where too detailed, or explained too late into the story. The overall pacing of the story was a bit off too, some events happened too quickly while other parts were too convoluted and could have been slimmed down, especially the first half of the book. Also there wasn't enough angst and conflict in the romance and concerning one of the character's changing sides, it went a bit too quickly for my liking.  The writing was pretty good, with some nice turns of phrase but sometimes a bit superfluous.
Despite these elements I disliked, I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy.