Glow

Ryan, Amy Kathleen. Glow. Book 1 of the Sky Chasers series. 2011. 307p. ISBN 0312590563. Available at FIC RYA on the library shelves.

With a complete social and environmental collapse on Earth decades ago, a plan was hatched to build giant spaceships and send them to a new planet where humans could colonize and rebuilt. The Empyrean was the second ship to be launched, a year after the New Horizon. Now decades later, life on the Empyrean is idyllic. The inhabitants of the large colony spaceship grow their own food, tend their animals, and prepare for the distant New Earth, where they will erect a new society. The ship is filled with kids and laughters. But underneath it all is a dark undercurrent.

Kieran Alden was the first child born on the ship, and is currently training to succeed the Captain. He is deeply in love with Waverley, the oldest girl on the ship, and together they share a comfortable history. Waverley, for her part, is sometimes also attracted to brooding Seth.

The Empyrean has been in a gaseous nebula for the last year and a half when they receive strange communications from the New Horizon. The first colonial ship should be so far ahead, but now the Empyrean has caught up with it, and suddenly everything changes. The New Horizon’s crew has been unable to have children, thus dooming its colonizing mission. They planned and executed a perfect mission, kidnapping Waverley and all of the girls from the Empyrean for their own nefarious purposes. The assault causes the death of most of the adults on board the Empyrean, and the leaking reactor kills the rest.

Left in charge of the Empyrean, Kieran must not only contend with the adults’ disappearance, but with an open rebellion among the ranks of the boys left on the ship. Led by Seth, they are clamoring for a change of leadership.

With the two lovers separated by increasing distance, can they survive enemies both from without and from within?