Digging in the stars by Katherine Blakeney.
A lost ancient civilization and the tomb of a legendary king lie buried beneath centuries of ash on the volcanic planet Thror, but that’s not the only reason sixteen-year-old Carter has tricked her Archaeology of Outer Space class into coming here. Her best friend Conrad has just disappeared on a trip to Thror, leaving behind little more than a broken vintage camera. The strange and disturbing photographs she manages to extract make her suspect Conrad’s disappearance is somehow connected to the hidden tomb of the last king of Thror.
An ok read. Bit slow for me but I read it. 3*.

Archeology, outerspace, xenobiology, a coded ancient mystery and that cover? I was so excited to see when my request on NetGalley was approved for this title. I opened it up immediately, ready to delve into a world filled with new worlds to explore and the characters using some of my greatest interests - I had just completed a class in Archaeology in university so I was crazy excited to see how this book met with the reality!

Well, I don't really know what to say about this book except it didn't work for me. It's not a bad book, and the author isn't untalented but I think I expected too much out of this plot before I even got started. I was expecting a grand space adventure with twists and turns, plenty of action and general thriller vibes with a mystery at it's core. Instead, things plodded on until it was suddenly over.

I think Digging in the Stars was marketed as Young Adult literature, but may be something I'd give my middle schooler new to the world of Young Adult. Honestly, I think that because this may have been a little "younger" than I originally expected, I was more dissatisfied than expected. I hated Mrs P and found her behaviour to be unrealistic of a teacher (from an adult pov), I didn't like or get the furry alien creautres and generally felt like the whole book was rather childish.

This is not to say this is a bad thing, I love that for once I read a book that was actually a Young Adult novel and didnt flirt with the line between YA and NA. This is Young Adult as it was intended.

Three stars on the basis this works well for a new young adult reader and the planetary archeology idea.

Archaeology in space is all you need to know. Read it now!

"The old belief that Thror was a black hole instead of a planet was not unfounded. A black hole sucking in all who ventured too far"

* * .5
2.5 / 5

Digging in the Stars had a lot of potential (it's about archaeology IN OUTER SPACE, I mean talk about awesome) but unfortunately the characters were a bit too flat and the narrative too confused to pull it off. There was still a good chunk of mystery and a totally whacky ending to make this book fun, but it wasn't exactly a page turner.

Carter is our main character, a student at college studying Archaeology of Outer Space which is apparently rather unpopular, given her small class size of about six. Carter is Professor P's teaching assistant and so books the archaeology apprenticeship trip to Magnus. Except, well, she doesn't. Her friend Conrad went missing on the desert-like, low technological planet Thror, famed for the lost tomb of the last King of Thror. So Carter books a flight to Thror, which they somehow all board without anyone noticing that they are not, in fact, going to Magnus (how does this happen? What responsible adult trusts a sixteen year old to book an interstellar flight and accommodation and then pay so little attention in an airport so as not to notice?).

"You are not Howard Carter! You are my sixteen-year-old student, and you have done more than enough damage alread, risking our budget, my career, and perhaps all our lives on a whim"

On Thror, not all is as it seems. The natives, the "Furry Giants", are suspiciously unhelpful as Carter searches for traces of her missing friend. Then comes some treasure-searching, a bit of mystery, some archaeology and a whole lot of weirdness. Back to Carter: she's a bit flat. What do I know about Carter? Her parents a big archaeological folks, she loves archaeology and loves her namesake (Howard Carter), and she has a bit of a superiority complex. That's about it. She dips in and out of concern for her friend, Conrad. Given that he's supposedly dead, you'd think that he'd be a bit more on her mind, rather than traipsing around looking at markets and making necklaces.

Then there's the rest of her archaeology class who get unwittingly transported to Thror. The only two with a glimmer of real personality are Gioconda, who is a total hippy and ends up joining some kind of Throrian cult, and Lizzie who spends the whole book alternating between sarky and sulky. Allison and Bryanne are pretty interchangeable. None of the four are that into archaeology. Professor P, the class teacher, is actually rather interesting - she's a gem of a character. She's pretty sensible, being in charge of a bunch of emotional sixteen year olds and all, witty, and a little bit daring.

Unfortunately, I found the writing to be quite confused. Sections were either long and drawn out and I wasn't quite sure why they were happening or there's too much happening all at once. The mythology and history of Thror is pretty poorly explained, all the natives seem to be creepy and lecherous, and there's lots of little sideplots (Lizzie's family, for example) that are hinted at and never explored. Conrad is also very annoying and a manipulative irritant, when I think he's supposed mysterious and handsome.

"Now that we have established that this is an excavation and not an opera, we can proceed with our work"

That's all rather negative. So what do I like? I absolutely loved all the archaeology based bits - that's why I picked the book up initially, after all! I loved archaeology as child and was incredibly into Ancient Egypt, which seemed to sort of inspire Thror. Unfortunately, there was only a couple of scenes that really got into the details of what doing excavation is all about - everyone seemed a bit too gung-ho in going around a cutting locks and bashing doors in on ancient tombs. I also thought the opening pages of Digging in the Stars were pretty good - I was grabbed from the get-go.

Digging in the Stars is built off of an awesome idea, but the cast is too dull and the writing a bit confused to pull it off. I recommend it if you like reading about weird aliens or archaeology. Bonus points for incorporating a couple of my favourite lines of poetry ever:

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

My thanks to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for an ARC of Digging In The Stars.

I was given a fee ecopy of this book in return for an honest review. Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity.
I was intrigued by the plot concept of an extra-terrestrial archaeology based missing person mystery and my initially impressions of the book were favourable with interesting descriptions, particularly of the smell based society, which seemed highly imaginative. However as the story progressed to the planet Thror, it was entirely built on stereotypes of foreign reactions to English tourists. At times I felt like I was reading a script for a new Carry On film. While I understand the picture the author was trying to build, reading page after page of pidgin English quickly became annoying and was ultimately exhausting. I very nearly gave up half way through, but having agreed to read the book for review, I laboured on. Much like the plot. I have to say I didn’t take to the hero. Carter (named after the famous archaeologist) was academically gifted but didn’t seem all that heroic. She gained nothing from hard work, and made some morally dubious decisions. When things go badly wrong she decided instead of trying to do something about it she would just wait for something to change because 'it always did'. Later when faced with rescuing her professor from a potentially life threatening situation or going on to fame and fortune she agonised for all of two sentences before picking the selfish option. And my favourite quote - “isn’t it…well, wrong to break in?” asked Bryanne. Carter aimed her pick at the seal binding the doors. “Not if it’s done scientifically.” The final plot twist hinged on the most unlikely coincidence which had my eyes rolling to the very last page. If you are adult who likes to read the odd children’s book that has depth, this may not be the book for you, but if you have younger teens who like Indiana Jones and you don’t mind them digging up your prize flower beds in the name of science then it may be worth pointing them in the direction of this book.

This review is copied straight from my blog and Goodreads.

Rating: 5/5

Genre: YA Sci-Fi

Recommended Age: 13+

Favorite Quote: "#ThrorLives"

I received a copy of this book from the publishing company (Blaze Publishing Company) from netgalley in exchange for a review and I received another copy of this book when I became a publishing rep for the company. This did not influence me in anyway.

Carter, a sixteen year-old girl living in the year 2222, longs to live up to her namesake, Howard Carter the English archaeologist and Egyptologist who discovered the intact tomb of King Tut aka King Tutankhamun in 1922. This is why she chose to major in Archaeology of Outer Space, which is normally a class where students who couldn't get into their first chose major go. Carter is an excellent student. She's a TA for her teacher, Professor P, and she's in charge of making the reservations for their expedition to Magnus. The class is supposed to journey to Magnus for an archaeology apprenticeship. However, Carter is too distracted by the recent disappearance of her best friend Conrad. He left without telling her and she recently received his possessions from a planet called Thror. Fearing the worst, Carter tricks her class into detouring from their expedition to Magnus to journeying to Thror. When photographs from Conrad's found camera reveal what could be the tomb of the last king of Thror and the overly-friendly natives seem to be hiding something, Carter and her classmates follow Conrad's footsteps into the mountains and launch an illegal excavation in a forbidden zone. Following the clues and coded messages strange things are revealed about Thror, but is the truth stranger than the facade?

Normally I don't like science fiction novels because I feel that so much about the technology and the time period goes unexplained and the technology can be outlandish; however, I loved this novel. The characters were very well written and the writing flowed beautifully. The characters were so well written and each had their own developed personalities that I could read something one of them said and hear the same character speak it in my head. The characters really do come to life in the novel and you come to love them, despite some of the characters having annoying traits at times (I'm looking at you Bryanne). A lot about the technology and the time period was explained and wasn't out of the realm of impossibility. The story had a nice ebb and flow, for every section about the archaeology of Thror there was a section with action in it and for every serious scene there was a few funny moments. The author also did a good job describing scenes and creating mystery and tension.

The only issue I had with this book is that I felt the ending was a bit rushed. I wanted more in the end and I wanted to have some of the ending explained better. I felt a tad overwhelmed by the amount of action and description going on at the ending of the book. Despite that, this book joins the league of my 2017 five star reads! I just want to reread this book right now! I'm excited to see other books this author can come up with.

Also, while I have your attention: Blaze Publishing Company is hosting a giveaway with this book in which you could win a $25 Amazon giftcard! Go check out their Instagram page or mine for further details. This book releases March 28th, so get your paperback copy now!

I was surprised by how much I liked this book it has a great plot with lots of action, aliens and mysteries to keep you guessing until the very end of the book, so much so that I will had a hard time putting it down once I started. I wasn’t completely sure of my expectations going into this book since the blurb reminded me a lot of Janet Edwards "Earth Girl" series (and one of my favorites) but it is has plenty of original twist and turns that that make it a wonderful book.

There's Something About This Book

It's a teen drama, girl's own, sci-fi, "King Solomon's Mines", alien world quest adventure. The characters are stock, except when they aren't, and the plot is incoherent, except when it makes sense. It is loaded with loose ends and implausibilities piled on top of coincidences, but it is so ambitious and imaginative, and it is driven by such a helter-skelter narrative, that I stormed through it despite myself.

Here's a brief plot synopsis. Moody, damaged heartthrob Conrad heads to the planet Thror and disappears. He sends some clues about his fate to Carter. She books her archeology class field trip to Thror without telling her prof or the other students, and so they get on a spaceship to Magnus and find themselves actually transported to Thror. Really? Since they're all stuck there they all decide to try to find Conrad, because hey, why not. Thror was once home to an advanced, artistic and glamorously exotic civilization that was totally wiped out by massive, cataclysmic volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that basically Pompeiified the entire planet. Or did it? Is there cool hidden stuff out there? Are the few surviving Throrians hiding it? Did Conrad find it? Will we? The only way to find out is to hike out into the baking, ash covered, volcanic wasteland of Thror and have a bit of a look around.

This shouldn't work. Our crew is Carter, (a sometimes lion-hearted and sometimes timid heroine), Professor P, (alternately furious at everything and then calmly understanding), and a sarcastic famous girl, a homesick namby-pamby, an earth child nutty granola girl, and a phone dependent gum chewer. The local Throrians are seven-foot-tall furry gorilla/lizards who spend most of their time hitting on attractive Earth woman. (How would that work?) And Conrad is Lord Byron by way of Heathcliff. Stop it; you're killing me here.

I think the thing is that when the book gets cooking it's really very good. This book is set in the year 2222, and our Carter wants to be like the Howard Carter who found Tut's tomb in 1922. When she thinks about his discovery, and reads about the way Thror used to be, and imagines what there is that might be found in Thror now, well, the book just takes off. The writing is beautiful and evocative and romantic in a great adventure sort of way. That part is so good, and there's enough of it, that I was willing to skip over the bumpy parts, the stilted dialogue, and the crazy quilt plotting. (In all of that, by the way, the book is identical to "King Solomon's Mines", and that's a classic.)

So, for an older Middle Grade or younger YA reader with a taste for romantic high-energy alien world adventure and mystery quests, my bottom line is that this could be a very happy find.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)