Star Lost

by Jon Kiln

Stranded at Hellix Station on the fringes of the Carmine Nebula, Crix and eleven-year-old Izzy find themselves taking on increasingly perilous courier jobs through unpredictable ion storms after a catastrophic engine failure. Their routine stopover transforms into something more complex when Izzy's explorations with a local mechanic's daughter uncover an underground racing scene, earning her the respect of daredevil pilots—and unwanted attention from station authorities.

When Crix embarks on a dangerous three-week salvage mission to settle their mounting debts, disaster strikes as a massive ion storm cuts communication and cripples the station's life support systems. With evacuation vessels limited and Crix lost somewhere in the nebula's depths, Izzy must make an impossible choice—follow station orders and evacuate to safety, or risk everything to prepare the Comet for a rescue mission that nobody believes can succeed.

Genres: Science Fiction

270 pages, Paperback

Published May 13, 2025

About the author

Heroic fantasy author.

Reviews

[Artimus]

1/2 of a 1/2 of a book

First, this story is a light fun read. However, it ends abruptly in what seems to be the middle of the story.

If my big complaint of book 1 was that it was half a story, then book 2 is half of a different story. Many of the plot points left open from book 1 are disregarded in book 2, to be finished in some future book.

I will probably finish the series, but it is annoying to me the author doesn't follow traditional story structure and keeps ending the books with climax or falling action.

[Laz the Sailor]

Not as good as the first. A few new intriguing characters, but the story is forced, and ends with a TBC, which suggests that the series will be a shaggy-dog story, or serial. Also, the scifi physics are really confused, becoming hard to ignore.

I'm not going to continue, but I would recommend it to young/teen readers looking for recent scifi.

[Michael Bonkowski]

A wonderful continuation of this series with a cliff hanger ending.

A very engaging continuation of this series. The story is well told and moves the plot along nicely. The cliff hanger ending is a bit much but maybe the author had to split the story because of length.

[Scott Shjefte]

A man gets his spaceship and picks up a passenger sidekick or two. Space opera. Fun read of trials and tribulations. 2nd book joins some previous family members and traps set by business ventures. Read with Alexa's audio app. Borrowed on Sep 13, 2025 with Kindle Unlimited.

[Cape Rust]

Loyalty

This one keeps going to the last page... Great steady actions, smart characters and just enough conflict to keep readers hungry. Izzy and Crix work and grow together in the ways a buddy team should. Cant wait for the next book in the series.

[Gary Davis]

Excellent

And of course I need to buy the next book since this one ended at a suspence point... Are they going to be able to rescue the main character? (Of course they are, but we need to know how.) 🙂

[Beverly]

I really don't like cliffhangers, especially when the next in the series isn't readily available.

[Jean O'Callaghan]

Better than book one....ready for book three.

[Deberra Engelke]

On the edge of my seat

Another excellent book I couldn't stop thinking about. Second in the series. I don't want to put it down. On to the next...