I almost DNF-ed this because the story just didn’t capture my attention but I still trudged through because I was curious to see how the story ends. The blurb for this is great and had me intrigued but I just couldn’t get into the plot and writing.

I have never read a story which featured an alien living on earth with humans and not wanting to cause chaos to humankind. Honestly, it does have some interesting parts but not enough for me to bunk up my ratings. The writing seemed disjointed at times and I don’t feel much for the main characters.

To be fair, I haven’t read the prequel to this story so that could be a reason why I didn’t enjoy this as much as I had hoped. Maybe I will come back and re-read this again after I have read the first story.

Thank you Netgalley and Quercus Books for the arc.

I thoroughly enjoyed this series! Nothing will beat the first book but I still loved everything that happened in this book!

It was a great ending to a great series!

Our Child of Two Worlds by Stephen Cox

In the troubled Cold War years of the 1970s, the world still reels from the events of Meteor Day when humanity learned that it wasn’t alone in the universe. A young alien child, Cory, landed alone on Earth and was adopted by Molly and Gene, who were prepared to risk everything to save and comfort this frightened, strange, wonderful child. But not only that, humans learned that there is another species, deadly, mechanical, snakelike, that destroys all life before it, that is already making incursions into the solar system. Now people look to the stars and hope for Cory’s people to arrive because this is not an enemy that can be fought without help.

Meanwhile, Cory continues to learn about life on this, his other world, while missing his home terribly, seeking to connect across the stars in his dreams. But Cory is a much loved child, not to mention a celebrity, and the subject of endless speculation, wonder and even fear. Molly’s concerns are much more practical – to keep her family together, to keep Cory as content as possible, and survive whatever will come.

Our Child of the Stars is one of my favourite books of all time. I love science fiction and especially tales of first contact, but there is so much more to this story than that. That’s partly because of Cory, who has to be one of the most adorable, sad, loving and curious figures that I’ve come across. But it’s also because of the setting in this small part of America in a reimagined and struggling 1970s. Molly and Gene are a wonderful couple. It’s so good to see them all again in Our Child of Two Worlds, set a little bit after the previous novel, with Cory’s identity now revealed and his powers emerging.

Despite the love that surrounds him, Cory is lonelier than ever, particularly as he’s aware that people fear him. But he loves to play with his powers and it’s a pleasure to read about the games he plays. Until the worry grabs him again. He’s been traumatised by the events of Meteor Day. He knows better than anyone how terrifying the Snakes can be. And he misses his family.

In Our Child of Two Worlds, we learn more about Cory’s people, how they communicate and how they love as families and explorers, as well as their mission. I loved the time spent on interstellar spaceships, the hope that not all aliens are out to destroy the world. But the fear of the Snakes is genuine and well-founded.

There are smaller concerns, equally important in many ways. The prospect of the arrival of Cory’s people means the chance of a life in the stars for Gene. Molly is more rooted in the family home. They are a loving couple but there is a shadow creeping in from the corners.

Stephen Cox writes beautifully and fills his characters with warmth and self-questioning. I love the incidental characters who debate whether Cory is a hoax. There’s the drama surrounding Molly’s family. There are tensions that play out on an intimate scale against the massive context of aliens, space travel, the potential end of the world. It works brilliantly.

There is also considerable excitement and tension as the realisation grows that the world truly is in danger. It’s a fantastic story, told so well. Do read Our Child of the Stars first. You need to do that and then Our Child of Two Worlds will be irresistible reading. How I adore Cory, the boy who loved by two worlds!

Other review
Our Child of the Stars

I had high expectations for Our Child of Two Worlds, Our Child of the Stars was one of my top books back in 2019 and I was very happy when I read that the follow up was being published.
When you have high expectations and loved a book I am always a bit wary about the follow up as I don’t know if it will be up to the first novel and if I will feel again the emotion I felt.
I am very happy to say that all my expectations were met and my doubts solved: this is another page turner that I couldn’t put down, that moved me and made fell in love again with Corey and the great cast of characters.
It’s a book about choices, hope against all odds, war, what it means belonging, and the difficulties in letting go.
There’s a lot going on and there’s never a moment when the plot drags or stopped making me feel emotionally involved in the story.
Stephen Cox is an excellent storyteller, he developed great characters and a fascinating alternate history and world.
It was a riveting, compelling, and gripping read. It left suffering from book hangover as I didn’t want to turn the last page.
A well written and emotionally charged story that I strongly recommend.
Many thanks to Jo Fletecher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

'm grateful to Jo Fletcher Books for a free advance e-copy of Our Child of Two Worlds via NetGalley and for inviting me to join the social media blast.

I was really pleased to see this sequel to Our Child of the Stars coming. Cox takes us back to his alternate early-70s, which is both familiar - the world is stuck in a Cold War and, in the US, the counterculture is running out of steam - and different. The ripples of Meteor Day, when an alien starship crashed near a small US town with one survivor, the child Cory ('Little Glowing Blue Frog' in his own language), continue to spread. The metal creatures known as Snakes are preparing to assault Earth (Moon landings have been attacked and satellites destroyed). Cory's people, the "Purples", have still not turned up, and Molly and Gene - Cory's adoptive parents - are seeing their marriage under strain. Gene yearns to travel, but roaming Earth is impossible because of Cory and his complex situation. He'd really like to go with Cory to the stars ('He wanted to be the first human to breathe those strange, perfumed winds...') if his people ever return, but Molly can't abide the idea.

Our Child of Two Worlds is about what happens next - about Molly and Gene's attempts to balance their love for Cory with their own hopes and fears in a world utterly changed; about his need, without role models from his own people, to control the powerful psychic powers with which he's gifted (there is real fear in his recognition of what he can do: 'Cory not-good no-he-isn't Bad Man!'); and about attempts, by various unscrupulous parties, to use or manipulate Cory for their own ends. (Yes, Dr Pfeiffer appears again).

When danger looms, with wider family threatened, the fualtline between Molly and Gene is under even more pressure, with Cory, too, torn in different directions. Cox's nuanced portrayal of Cory is brilliant. We're not given a physical description, as though he was a different sort of thing, rather we see him through Molly and Gene's love - so occasionally a detail drops such as his 'strange striped ear', his inner eyelids (so he presumably has several), his tail - but there is no need to form a picture of Cory, rather all such glimpses are there to illustrate his emotions and mental state.

I love the way that Cox weaves together big, startling, science-fictional ideas - Aliens! Earth under attack! Scary mental powers! - with very personal ones: a failing marriage where husband and wife want very different things, a scared child, a manipulative husband. And indeed, the wonderful, tiny details of parenthood - 'the trance of the midnight parent' of the beauty in 'seeing a child in healthy sleep'. I felt this portrayal of humans under strain - and not just Molly and Gene - was very realistic, and far from judgemental. Cox is at pains to make us understand the history here and in all the arguments and disputes there is no absolute right and wrong (even, perhaps, when said Dr P comes on the scene). And he makes his alt-history seem so plausible - all the little details tell (Simon and Garfunkel have a hit called "Meteor Day", there are rumours (of course!) that the Beatles will get back together to sing for Cory.

There are also some fun little details to be spotted, I think; I'd swear Cox has put a sign of his passing by in Moly and Gene's journey, I also thought I glimpsed both 2001 and War of the Worlds references as well as a belief that 'The Truth is Out There'.

That weaving together doesn't detract from or diminish the tension, as Earth's defences are stripped away by the Snakes. Rather, the level of jeopardy is emphasised because the fault line that runs through the Myers' marriage is all about Cory - if he returns to the stars, should they go with him or stay behind? Will they have that choice? Is it selfish to think of such things, faced with the threat to both humanity and to Cory's people? Soberingly, as I write this in March 2022, we read that Dr Preiffer, considering that threat, 'had been able to stare in to the abyss that was the possibility of nuclear war because he believed the Soviet leadership was not wholly irrational...' - that suddenly seems very on-point.

Like the best SF, Our Child of Two Worlds is about us, at our best and worst, and how we respond to the best and the worst in others. Cory's people are from a very different, almost Utopian seeming culture and - as in one of Swift's novels - we're judged by that comparison, Cory himself noting it even as his love for his adopted parents and his friends burns bright. Are we worth saving, if we seem willing to destroy ourselves anyway?

A fiercely intelligent, engaged and often angry novel, Our Child of Two Worlds is moving, exciting and deeply readable.

A great finale to this series. Which had been really engrossing all the way through. I have really enjoyed going on the journey with all the characters and this is a fitting ending

This was a good novel that concluded the story nicely. The events themselves were satisfying but left a lot to be desired after the first novel.

Our Child of Two Worlds is a remarkable story of family and the power of love, set against the backdrop of a fast-changing, terrifying decade and an interstellar threat almost beyond imagining.

Stephen Cox is responsible for a fairly new love for reading Science Fiction, a genre that I very much thought I’d never find peace with. It all started with Our Child of The Stars (book one) of which this is the sequel coming in April 2022. In book one we meet Cory,

Another beautiful book that is so much more than a defining genre. Stephen Cox delicately weaves in poignant and emotive issues into his writing, putting everyday characters and challenges alongside what should feel unrealistic and out of this world. But it doesn’t. Molly and Gene Myers are ordinary people with an extraordinary life unfolding around them.

It’s absolutely wonderful to be able to unravel more of Cory’s life and see where Molly and Gene are too. There are new characters, all of which are woven into the book to build them up into realistic people, with their own complexities and back stories too. There are many many themes throughout, community, family, love, loss, and so much more.

This book can be read as a standalone but your experience will be so much better if you dive into Our Child of the Stars and get to know the origins of Cory and the start of his journey on earth.

I had a lot of questions at the end of "Our Child of the Stars" and I was hoping they'd be answered in this follow-up. If anything, I have even more questions after finishing "Our Child of Two Worlds", so I'm hoping there will be a third book. As with the first book, this is a quick read and I enjoyed everything about the book... apart from the frustration with wanting to go far deeper into the alien culture.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

DNF at 20%.

I try to finish reading all books I've requested ARCs of - I feel it's only fair, but sometimes you can just tell that it's not a good match and my eventual review would do nothing for the success of the book. This is one such case, and rather than continue plugging along for another month I have decided to give up. Therefore my star rating is also not an accurate reflection (but here on Netgalley I have to give one).

I thought the story sounded intriguing - I haven't read many stories featuring alien life on earth, and it does have some interesting bits. Though it's chaotic and disjointed. Partly this may be due to it being the second book in a series, something which was not clear to me when I requested it (in my defence there was at the time no other books in the series listed under the author profile on GR - there is now - and I thought it was one of those cases of a book having two slightly different names in different regions, which I know sometimes happens). Nevertheless, I would have expected to feel more at home in the story having gotten this far, and feel like I had an overview of what was going on, but vague allusions to snakes and purples and dreaming-together don't really solidify this world and the characters for me. I also feel like there's sometimes illogical jumps in the story. And lastly I feel as if it's on the other hand a little juvenile/simplistic. For instance, instead of using the story and characters to illustrate why racism is bizarre, cruel or doesn't make sense, it's just outright said that racism is a horrible thing humans do, and it kind of loses impact.

So, I guess pick this up if you've read and enjoyed part one, or don't mind jumping in midway and not really getting a clear picture. If you enjoy stories about aliens and first contact. This one just wasn't for me, unfortunately.

I couldnt put this book down, it was well written with an interesting and well written storyline and well developed charcaters that I enjoyed navigating the pages with. A really enjoyable read.