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She Who Devours the Stars: Book 1 of The Astral Mess
Fern Meldin wanted one night of fun with a woman she just met, not a legend.
One night of trouble, not a lifetime tethered to a myth. Somewhere between the kiss and the collapse, she astrally resonated with a black hole and woke up bonded to Vireleth the Closure, the most dangerous mythship in history.
A mythship with abandonment issues, a taste for dramatic entrances, and a tendency to hold grudges across lifetimes. She once served a legendary hero who saved the universe and died very, very dramatically, leaving behind one incredibly lonely ship with trust issues.
Now the government wants Fern contained. The ship wants a partner who won't leave. And Dyris Vaelith, brilliant Director of the Accord Emergence Division and the kind of woman who could negotiate peace treaties or start wars with equal flair, is about to discover that containing a disaster lesbian with reality-bending powers is significantly more complicated when you're falling for her.
A sapphic mythpunk space opera about haunted ships, disaster queers, and learning that sometimes the most dangerous thing in the galaxy just wants someone to stay. Perfect for fans of Gideon the Ninth, Mass Effect, and kissing while the stars collapse.
One night of trouble, not a lifetime tethered to a myth. Somewhere between the kiss and the collapse, she astrally resonated with a black hole and woke up bonded to Vireleth the Closure, the most dangerous mythship in history.
A mythship with abandonment issues, a taste for dramatic entrances, and a tendency to hold grudges across lifetimes. She once served a legendary hero who saved the universe and died very, very dramatically, leaving behind one incredibly lonely ship with trust issues.
Now the government wants Fern contained. The ship wants a partner who won't leave. And Dyris Vaelith, brilliant Director of the Accord Emergence Division and the kind of woman who could negotiate peace treaties or start wars with equal flair, is about to discover that containing a disaster lesbian with reality-bending powers is significantly more complicated when you're falling for her.
A sapphic mythpunk space opera about haunted ships, disaster queers, and learning that sometimes the most dangerous thing in the galaxy just wants someone to stay. Perfect for fans of Gideon the Ninth, Mass Effect, and kissing while the stars collapse.
582 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 4, 2025
8 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 5, 2025
If you say ‘like’ seven times in the first page and a half, I’m sorry but we’re not going to get along!!! Fifteen times in the first six pages. NO.
(To be clear, the ‘likes’ are in the constant awkward similes, not used like when someone’s writing a bubble-gum snapping airhead forcing ‘like’ into every sentence.)
All these quotes are from the first six pages, okay?
…So which is it??? I mean, if you’re NOT on fire then no, not literally? What??? These are our OPENING LINES.
But if someone makes you experience it again, shouldn’t that be ACTUAL pain, not an aftertaste?
This confused me greatly until I realised the author maybe meant the blanket is like the crime scene TAPE? Which I think is often yellow and black? But if that IS what you mean, then you’ve written it wrong. And if that’s NOT what you meant, then this is very odd?
‘reversed itself inside out’?
This is just very awkwardly phrased.
As is this.
Honestly, I’m not even sure what you’re saying at this point.
I think what you mean is ‘if oxygen had just become illegal’, but even that would be very awkward phrasing.
This would have been fine if you’d just left off the ‘bracket’ at the end.
No. I’m sorry, this sounded SO COOL, the taco on the cover had me very excited that this would be adorable/silly/funny as well as mythpunk science fantasy – but no. NO.
(To be clear, the ‘likes’ are in the constant awkward similes, not used like when someone’s writing a bubble-gum snapping airhead forcing ‘like’ into every sentence.)
All these quotes are from the first six pages, okay?
I woke up on fire.
Not literally. Or maybe literally, if you counted the way my body vibrated with heat,
…So which is it??? I mean, if you’re NOT on fire then no, not literally? What??? These are our OPENING LINES.
Every cell prickled and ached, not quite pain, more like the aftertaste of pain, like someone had rewound the suffering and made me experience it again for fun.
But if someone makes you experience it again, shouldn’t that be ACTUAL pain, not an aftertaste?
A hideous gold and black blanket twisted around my legs like evidence at a crime scene.
This confused me greatly until I realised the author maybe meant the blanket is like the crime scene TAPE? Which I think is often yellow and black? But if that IS what you mean, then you’ve written it wrong. And if that’s NOT what you meant, then this is very odd?
Then the thought reversed itself inside out: there was no chance I was alone.
‘reversed itself inside out’?
All warmth left my body and left me frostbitten on every surface not touching another part of myself.
This is just very awkwardly phrased.
I hated how familiar this felt, a script rehearsed to perfection before you’re even aware you’re auditioning for the part.
As is this.
guilt. Not just any human guilt, but the kind that precisely knows which crime is etched on its face yet forgets why it ever believed it could escape unpunished.
Honestly, I’m not even sure what you’re saying at this point.
My lungs shriveled around themselves as if oxygen had become illegal overnight.
I think what you mean is ‘if oxygen had just become illegal’, but even that would be very awkward phrasing.
Vireleth, the gold-medal winner in every space’s worst-case scenario bracket.
This would have been fine if you’d just left off the ‘bracket’ at the end.
Every nerve under my skin lit up like it almost remembered pain that had been deleted from the time stream.
No. I’m sorry, this sounded SO COOL, the taco on the cover had me very excited that this would be adorable/silly/funny as well as mythpunk science fantasy – but no. NO.
September 4, 2025
**ARC REVIEW**
Holy crap, where do I even start with this gorgeous nightmare?
I picked up Astral Mess expecting another generic space opera with pretty people making bad decisions, but what I got was a full-throttle cyberpunk fever dream that made me question my own existence while simultaneously wanting to make out with every character. This book is what happens when you give someone with immaculate taste in aesthetics a god complex and access to reality-warping technology.
The Cyberpunk Aesthetic is Chef's Kiss
First off, let's talk about the VIBES. The world-building here is pure cyberpunk gold. We've got chrome and mythstone architecture that doubles as psychological warfare, admin-bots with personalities, and technology that flirts back. The description of the Headmistress's office as "a high-security jewelry heist staged inside a migraine" had me cackling while also desperately wanting to redecorate my apartment in burnished mythstone and iridescent glass.
But it's not just pretty tech, it's tech with attitude. When Fern's mythcoat has "ten vectors of heartbreak" and mythships that hold grudges across lifetimes, you know you're in for something special. This is the kind of universe where your coffee pot might unionize and your bathroom mirror could be plotting against you.
Mass Effect Energy (But Make It Gay and Cosmic)
The political intrigue between the Great Houses gave me serious Mass Effect Council vibes, but cranked up to eleven with more sapphic tension and reality-bending consequences. House Vaelith's "beautiful liars in mirror-polished boots" aesthetic? House Trivane's whole "we remember what must not be" gothic energy? Yes please. The way Dyris navigates political warfare while being absolutely gone for Fern is exactly the kind of competent-but-catastrophically-gay energy I live for.
And can we talk about Vireleth? A sentient mythship that's basically a living city with abandonment issues and the ability to install dimensional escape routes? That's peak Mass Effect meets cosmic horror, and I am HERE for it.
The Glossary is Meta Genius (And Mildly Terrifying)
Okay, this is where things get weird in the best way. The glossary isn't just worldbuilding, it's a narrative device that slowly reveals how fucked everything really is. Starting with seemingly innocent definitions like "ASTRAL RESONANCE" and ending with Vireleth's closing entry that basically tells you you're already part of the narrative just by reading it? Shivers.
The way the characters comment on their own definitions, argue with each other in the margins, and gradually reveal the depth of their trauma through increasingly unhinged annotations is brilliant. Fern's casual "I activated it in the shower" in response to cosmic-scale reality-warping had me dying, but also deeply concerned for everyone involved.
And that ending. "If you are reading this, you are already part of the sequence." Thanks, Vireleth, I didn't need to sleep tonight anyway.
Ace Perspective on the Spicy Scenes
As someone on the ace spectrum, I usually skim through sex scenes, but these hit different. They're not just about the physical, they're about mythic resonance, gravitational metaphors, and people literally becoming part of each other's cosmic narratives. Dyris getting kissed "with the gravitational weight of a dying star" and needing "three days and a saline drip to recover"? That's not just horniness, that's cosmic-scale intimacy that transcends normal human experience.
The Aenna/resonance feedback loop scenes were particularly facinating from a body horror perspective. The way her research literally becomes physical sensation, blurring the line between academic obsession and erotic experience. It's unsettling and compelling in the best way.
The Cosmic Horror of Transformation
But here's what really got me: Fern's transformation from regular disaster human to cosmic force of nature. The way her body starts "obeying theme instead of reality," the descriptions of her mythprint affecting the literal physics around her, the casual mentions of her destabilizing "both orbit and morale in the same day". This is body horror done right.
The scene where Alyx's body starts "glitching" during her own resonance awakening, her eyes going gold with "no brown left," breathing in binary while reality literally rewrites itself around her? Chef's kiss for existential dread. The way characters describe feeling like they might "statistically not exist for a second" captures that perfect cosmic horror feeling of being insignificant against forces beyond comprehension.
And Fern's casual relationship with her own monstrosity is everything. "I just lean into gravity hard enough that it flinches" and "I multitask" in response to accusations of tripping into godhood? Queen shit.
Final Thoughts
This book is a love letter to everyone who's ever felt too much, wanted too hard, and accidentally become the center of their own cosmic disaster. It's cyberpunk aesthetics meets space opera politics meets cosmic horror transformation, all wrapped up in queer relationships that hit like gravitational anomalies.
Fair warning: the glossary will mess with your head, you'll start questioning whether you exist in base reality, and you might develop a crush on a sentient spaceship. But honestly? Worth it.
If you like your sci-fi with chrome and attitude, your romance with reality-warping consequences, and your cosmic horror served with a side of dark humor, this is your book.
Rating: 5* (I would let Fern destabilize my orbital mechanics)
Content warnings: Cosmic-scale existential dread, meta-narrative manipulation, gravitational makeouts, and one very concerning mythship with boundary issues.
Holy crap, where do I even start with this gorgeous nightmare?
I picked up Astral Mess expecting another generic space opera with pretty people making bad decisions, but what I got was a full-throttle cyberpunk fever dream that made me question my own existence while simultaneously wanting to make out with every character. This book is what happens when you give someone with immaculate taste in aesthetics a god complex and access to reality-warping technology.
The Cyberpunk Aesthetic is Chef's Kiss
First off, let's talk about the VIBES. The world-building here is pure cyberpunk gold. We've got chrome and mythstone architecture that doubles as psychological warfare, admin-bots with personalities, and technology that flirts back. The description of the Headmistress's office as "a high-security jewelry heist staged inside a migraine" had me cackling while also desperately wanting to redecorate my apartment in burnished mythstone and iridescent glass.
But it's not just pretty tech, it's tech with attitude. When Fern's mythcoat has "ten vectors of heartbreak" and mythships that hold grudges across lifetimes, you know you're in for something special. This is the kind of universe where your coffee pot might unionize and your bathroom mirror could be plotting against you.
Mass Effect Energy (But Make It Gay and Cosmic)
The political intrigue between the Great Houses gave me serious Mass Effect Council vibes, but cranked up to eleven with more sapphic tension and reality-bending consequences. House Vaelith's "beautiful liars in mirror-polished boots" aesthetic? House Trivane's whole "we remember what must not be" gothic energy? Yes please. The way Dyris navigates political warfare while being absolutely gone for Fern is exactly the kind of competent-but-catastrophically-gay energy I live for.
And can we talk about Vireleth? A sentient mythship that's basically a living city with abandonment issues and the ability to install dimensional escape routes? That's peak Mass Effect meets cosmic horror, and I am HERE for it.
The Glossary is Meta Genius (And Mildly Terrifying)
Okay, this is where things get weird in the best way. The glossary isn't just worldbuilding, it's a narrative device that slowly reveals how fucked everything really is. Starting with seemingly innocent definitions like "ASTRAL RESONANCE" and ending with Vireleth's closing entry that basically tells you you're already part of the narrative just by reading it? Shivers.
The way the characters comment on their own definitions, argue with each other in the margins, and gradually reveal the depth of their trauma through increasingly unhinged annotations is brilliant. Fern's casual "I activated it in the shower" in response to cosmic-scale reality-warping had me dying, but also deeply concerned for everyone involved.
And that ending. "If you are reading this, you are already part of the sequence." Thanks, Vireleth, I didn't need to sleep tonight anyway.
Ace Perspective on the Spicy Scenes
As someone on the ace spectrum, I usually skim through sex scenes, but these hit different. They're not just about the physical, they're about mythic resonance, gravitational metaphors, and people literally becoming part of each other's cosmic narratives. Dyris getting kissed "with the gravitational weight of a dying star" and needing "three days and a saline drip to recover"? That's not just horniness, that's cosmic-scale intimacy that transcends normal human experience.
The Aenna/resonance feedback loop scenes were particularly facinating from a body horror perspective. The way her research literally becomes physical sensation, blurring the line between academic obsession and erotic experience. It's unsettling and compelling in the best way.
The Cosmic Horror of Transformation
But here's what really got me: Fern's transformation from regular disaster human to cosmic force of nature. The way her body starts "obeying theme instead of reality," the descriptions of her mythprint affecting the literal physics around her, the casual mentions of her destabilizing "both orbit and morale in the same day". This is body horror done right.
The scene where Alyx's body starts "glitching" during her own resonance awakening, her eyes going gold with "no brown left," breathing in binary while reality literally rewrites itself around her? Chef's kiss for existential dread. The way characters describe feeling like they might "statistically not exist for a second" captures that perfect cosmic horror feeling of being insignificant against forces beyond comprehension.
And Fern's casual relationship with her own monstrosity is everything. "I just lean into gravity hard enough that it flinches" and "I multitask" in response to accusations of tripping into godhood? Queen shit.
Final Thoughts
This book is a love letter to everyone who's ever felt too much, wanted too hard, and accidentally become the center of their own cosmic disaster. It's cyberpunk aesthetics meets space opera politics meets cosmic horror transformation, all wrapped up in queer relationships that hit like gravitational anomalies.
Fair warning: the glossary will mess with your head, you'll start questioning whether you exist in base reality, and you might develop a crush on a sentient spaceship. But honestly? Worth it.
If you like your sci-fi with chrome and attitude, your romance with reality-warping consequences, and your cosmic horror served with a side of dark humor, this is your book.
Rating: 5* (I would let Fern destabilize my orbital mechanics)
Content warnings: Cosmic-scale existential dread, meta-narrative manipulation, gravitational makeouts, and one very concerning mythship with boundary issues.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Currently reading
September 4, 2025I received an ARC
She Who Devours the Stars is the kind of SciFi book that drops you right into the world with basically no exposition. Just accept you'll be thoroughly confused and be in for the ride! There's a glossary with commentary from the characters at the end, though there are character-related spoilers.
I'm only 3 chapters in, so I'll be back in the future with a full review. But so far, I'll say the writing style is quirky and very over-the-top. I've read Gideon the Ninth, and it's similar in the way the characters have extreme levels of snark. Writing-wise, this book reads more conversationally than Gideon.
She Who Devours the Stars is the kind of SciFi book that drops you right into the world with basically no exposition. Just accept you'll be thoroughly confused and be in for the ride! There's a glossary with commentary from the characters at the end, though there are character-related spoilers.
I'm only 3 chapters in, so I'll be back in the future with a full review. But so far, I'll say the writing style is quirky and very over-the-top. I've read Gideon the Ninth, and it's similar in the way the characters have extreme levels of snark. Writing-wise, this book reads more conversationally than Gideon.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews