MAY 2019 - AudioFile
Adenrele Ojo narrates a taut psychological thriller featuring two willful women with a dark connection. Gyre Price lies her way into a cave exploration job on another planet and tirelessly pursues any information about the fate of her mother, who has disappeared. Her handler, Em, guides Gyre from the surface of the planet with a heavy and manipulative hand. Gyre's haunting journey into an unexplored cave is rife with monsters both real and imagined. Ojo imbues Gyre with a youthfulness that is at odds with her harrowing situation. Struggling under the weight of a weak narrative, Ojo’s delivery, nevertheless, maintains a creeping paranoia. The story seems to work better in audio form, thanks to Ojo's earnest voice. She grabs the listener's attention and ramps up the claustrophobia. J.M.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 12/10/2018
Starling’s riveting near-future debut depicts an intense psychological battle of wills between two damaged, deeply flawed women who forge an unbreakable connection in the dark. Gyre Price, an amateur caver from an impoverished mining world, is desperate to earn enough money to discover the fate of her mother, who abandoned their family when Gyre was young—and she isn’t above falsifying her qualifications to get the high-paying job she needs. Aware of Gyre’s deception, Em, Gyre’s controlling, manipulative handler, guides her on a harrowing journey into the depths of a rarely explored cave system on some unexplained, ill-fated errand. To survive the darkness and the threats concealed therein, Gyre must confront monsters from her own imagination as well as those from Em’s bloody past, and defeat them both. Both women can be messy, cruel, and selfish, and Starling disregards conventional notions of such women seeking or needing absolution. This claustrophobic, horror-leaning tour de force is highly recommended for fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation and Andy Weir’s The Martian. Agent: Caitlin McDonald, Donald Maass Literary. (Apr.)
Kameron Hurley
A masterful, nail-biting thriller from an extraordinary talent. Meticulously researched, expertly paced, with yearning, self-destructive heroines whose incredible physical and emotional journies will leave you breathless.”
Ada Hoffmann
Caitlin Starling’s The Luminous Dead is a gripping, claustrophobic thriller propelled by complex relationships between women. I couldn’t put it down.
Sean Grigsby
With sharp prose and mounting dread, Starling will drag you into a dark descent. Get ready for chills.
Booklist
Starling’s debut is a chilling study in mutual guilt and dependence that will have readers racing toward the conclusion.
Kelly Robson
A startling debut. I was truly spooked.
Tade Thompson
With The Luminous Dead, Caitlin Starling gives us a confident debut, an imaginative future thriller that barely lets up the tension and claustrophobia. Mistrust and paranoia abound all the way to the end, and Gyre feels every moment of it, widening along with the events, as the poet said.
Emily Suvada
“The Luminous Dead is a gripping scifi thriller with an eerie, claustrophobic setting that held me captive until I finished it. I think part of me was left behind forever in Starling’s cave. This book will drag you into its dark, twisting depths and will not let you go.
Mark Oshiro
The Luminous Dead managed to be the best sci-fi book coming in 2019. And the best horror novel. And the best queer story. This book is so many things at once, and I cannot wait for readers to discover the terrifying, complex world that Caitlin Starling has created.
John Hornor Jacobs
Starling’s debut gives us an exciting and terrifying sf adventure set in the dangerous bowels of a distant planet. But like the enormous cavern system below the surface of Cassandra V, this story has hidden depths, secrets and mysteries to reveal. Highly recommended from start to finish.
Martha Wells
A tense psychological thriller and a gripping survival story that kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way through. It’s a dark ride that’s worth every step.
Elsa Sjunneson-Henry
Starling’s debut is tense and well-paced, taut and terrifying. This book never lets you (or Gyre) breathe for more than an instant before pushing you further into the frightening unknown. A book you won’t want to put down until the resolution arrives.
Sarah Gailey
A harrowing, merciless descent into the human psyche. Starling’s prose is breathtakingly cinematic and left me without a molecule of spare oxygen. This book will catch you by the ankles and drag you backwards into a terrifying and inescapable reality. Read this one with all the lights on.
K.A. Doore
The Luminous Dead dives into the human psyche and our ability for cruelty alongside compassion. Starling crafts a plot tight and gripping, weaves scenes dripping with wonder and terror, and keeps you wondering what’s real and what’s not until the very last page. Both beautiful and brutal, I loved it.
Peng Shepherd
Ghostly, mysterious, and terrifying, The Luminous Dead will have you rooted to the spot until the very last page.”
MAY 2019 - AudioFile
Adenrele Ojo narrates a taut psychological thriller featuring two willful women with a dark connection. Gyre Price lies her way into a cave exploration job on another planet and tirelessly pursues any information about the fate of her mother, who has disappeared. Her handler, Em, guides Gyre from the surface of the planet with a heavy and manipulative hand. Gyre's haunting journey into an unexplored cave is rife with monsters both real and imagined. Ojo imbues Gyre with a youthfulness that is at odds with her harrowing situation. Struggling under the weight of a weak narrative, Ojo’s delivery, nevertheless, maintains a creeping paranoia. The story seems to work better in audio form, thanks to Ojo's earnest voice. She grabs the listener's attention and ramps up the claustrophobia. J.M.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
