For Darkness Shows the Stars, by Diana Peterfreund

For some reason I've had a harder time finding books I love this year. A lot of my favorite authors don't have books coming out until spring, and my library seems to have a rather large influx of dystopian novels right now, which I know have been all the rage, but it's never been my favorite genre, and right now I'm not finding a lot of variety to balance them out with. I think one reason I don't like dystopia and post-apocalyptic books is that when I sink into a book, I want to be in that world--only, dystopia is a clearly a place NOBODY wants to be. So the books feel cold to me instead of warm.

Also (and please do not throw things at me), I've never been in love with Austen, although I do like the works of many writers who are Austen fans. To me, Austen is low on plot and high on brooding when everyone could easily solve their problems if they would just TALK TO EACH OTHER.

So if you told me this book was influenced by both Austen and an apocalypse, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. And while the cover is pretty, it could also be for an edgy book about a Girl With Powers, complete with a lot of dead bodies, some of them still walking around. Because that is also a popular genre at my library. But I thought I'd try it. And I really, really liked it.

There's gene modification. There's a future version of estates and serfdom. Our heroine, Elliott North (named for her grandfather) is keeping the estate together while her father and sister fritter away everything to keep up their social standing. Four years ago, she had the chance to escape with her best friend, one of the serfs who are supposed to be inferior (child of a "Reduced" person--those who were mentally damaged when people tried to play God by DNA modification, which led to all kinds of devastation). But the day they were to leave, her mother died, and she was the only one left who could care for the Reduced on the estate. So he left, and she stayed. The farm is nearly depleted and if something drastic doesn't happen, they will all starve to death. So she makes a deal to rent out the boatyard property to some free people who used to be serfs. They are going to build a boat and travel to other places and hope to find people who survived.

And one of those shipbuilders is her old friend Kai.

So, a bit of science fiction, a bit of Austen (but everyone has really, really good reasons for the choices they've made and there's not that annoying sense of characters withholding information), plus there is the power struggle against the father who mismanages the estate and the intrigue of people using illegal gene modification. And it's warm. And you feel for this girl who has sacrificed everything to take care of her people, and is being judged for it all the same. Austen aside, it reminded me some of The House of the Scorpion and Dairy Queen, which are two books I'd never thought of in the same sentence before, but it works.

So if you're looking for a book that is warm and entertaining for a cold, windy night, this might be the one for you.