Our Child of the Stars – Stephen Cox
A lost child, the family who try to protect him and the secret that refuses to stay hidden . . .
Molly and Gene Myers were happy, until tragedy blighted their hopes of children. During the years of darkness and despair, they each put their marriage in jeopardy, but now they are starting to rebuild their fragile bond.
This is the year of Woodstock and the moon landings; war is raging in Vietnam and the superpowers are threatening each other with annihilation.
Then the Meteor crashes into Amber Grove, devastating the small New England town – and changing their lives for ever. Molly, a nurse, caught up in the thick of the disaster, is given care of a desperately ill patient rescued from the wreckage: a sick boy with a remarkable appearance, an orphan who needs a mother.
And soon the whole world will be looking for him.
Cory’s arrival has changed everything. And the Myers will do anything to keep him safe.
A remarkable story of warmth, tenacity and generosity of spirit, set against the backdrop of a fast-changing, terrifying decade.
Review:
Our Child of the Stars is a heart-warming, unputdownable tale about love, family and friendship. Heart-warming might not be complete enough a word to describe this book though. The main theme of the book is most definitely love, but a big part of the book has you on the edge of your seat with fear and frustration.
The story is set at the end of the 1960s and at first seems to be completely the same as our 1960s except that in a small town in America, a meteor and a spaceship crash. The spaceship carries aliens, two adults and two children. Only one child survives. The child is cared for in secret in the local hospital. One of the nurses is Molly, who after suffering a miscarriage has been struggling with her mental health. She quickly forms a very deep bond with the child, who she calls Cory. To protect the child from being used as a guinea pig by the government, they decide to fake his death. Molly and her husband, Gene, adopt the boy in secret and hide him from the world in their house. Slowly small, subtle differences begin to show in the history timeline that we are familiar with. It’s fascinating that the alternate history angle is taken further than just the events around Cory.
It’s testament to the talent of the author that Molly’s motherly love for Cory translates so well off the page to completely grip the reader in its powerful embrace. You can’t help but fall completely in love with Cory too. Cory is adorable. He’s sweet, polite, inquisitive and very sensitive.
It’s typical that the first conclusion the humans jump to is that the alien race might be hostile. We seem to be wired to always assume the worst. Survival mechanism, I guess? It makes for a sad narrative though, especially because it’s clear very early on that Cory’s people are a peaceful race where war and violence is non-existent.
Dr. Pfeiffer is an interesting character. As the Chief Scientific Advisor to the President he is enemy number one for Gene and Molly. He is the one who would take Cory away if anyone ever found out and he would probably see Cory as an experiment or a potential weapon. The few glimpses we get from Dr. Pfeiffer’s perspective show him in a slightly different light. All good scientists are incredibly curious and want to understand how things work. That is one of the things that drives Pfeiffer, besides some less desirable cravings like fame. He is somewhat relentless in his search for information, to the point where it becomes obsessive and cruel. It’s easy to see him as the bogeyman Molly makes him look. His other side shows in small encounters like when he is buying his kids presents at the shopping mall and wants Molly’s opinion on them. There is some humanity in Dr. Pfeiffer that is overshadowed by misconceptions and a hunger for fame. I really enjoy reading three dimensional characters like this. There’s always more than meets the eye.
The book is riddled with fearful anticipation and jumping at shadows and as a reader you agonise with Gene and Molly. Even though Cory has brought so much hope and joy to this family, it is a lot of the time overshadowed by constant fear of discovery. Somewhere in the book Molly describes how she and Gene discuss something about Cory late at night and she calls it a “war council”. That’s probably the most accurate word for to describe the constant planning and mistrust.
The pace really picks up around the halfway point and from there on it’s a constant adrenaline-fueled rollercoaster. Even though I was very tired, I was glued to the pages and couldn’t put the book down. I was so invested in this family and Cory’s fate, I couldn’t bear going to sleep without knowing what was going to happen to them.
Our Child of the Stars is an absolutely cracking debut. I loved every minute I spent between its pages and was reluctant to put it down for silly things like sleep, food and work. I can’t wait to see what the author brings to the table next. I’ll be eagerly keeping an eye out for more books!
Release Date: January 24th, 2019
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Age Group: Adult
Pages: 352
Format: E-galley
Source: Received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
