Tryst is driven to make connections, even taking risks in order to find meaningful interactions, but they never last.
Her search includes leaving a poetic post on an online bulletin board, hoping that someone’s reply will match her vibe and maybe turn into something deeper.
She gets the response she hoped for; enigmatic, fascinating, engaging—and anonymous. Tryst gives them the name Fo, based on a reference that they made about Fomalhaut, the Loneliest Star. The pair slowly build a rapport through emails, then connection via a private app.
One night during a dangerous storm, Fo abruptly disappears from their chat and does not return. The events that lead from that night introduce Tryst to a world she’d never imagined: a rich, lawless family, unethical experiments, and a terrible betrayal. Worst of all, she learns that Fo isn’t who she thought. Or is he?
What choices would you make in the quest to find the essence of your identity?
I’m lost in the echoing city streets, but the woods still call my name. Looking for someone who remembers glassphalt and thought it enchanting, which is why we don’t have it anymore, right? Nothing magical stays around here but us, wandering and wondering why we’re so alone.
Extra points for listening to music when you should be sleeping, staring out windows hoping for a glimpse of something unexpected, or being the one that people bring the pretty rocks and feathers to show.
It took a week to get a response that wasn’t nonsense. Sandwiched between emails with titles like “I know what you really need” and “Let’s meet up and play!” was a response that just had “Fomalhaut” in the subject line.
I didn’t recognize the word at first, so I looked it up online and read everything I could find on the subject. Known as the Loneliest Star, it was the kind of reference I immediately related to, and obscure enough that it felt clever. Now to see if the attached message lived up to that opening.
“This is a vitally current, and vitally timeless story, and I really don’t ever say such things lightly.
This tech romance mystery with a fresh spin on the batman rich explores trust and consent and humanity in a thoughtful and thought-encouraging way.
It’s a story for those who like to think.
A story for those who like to feel. Most of the time.
A story for those who’ve sought trust but found betrayal, and who never give up love or hope anyway.
For people who feel alone, who yearn for connection.
There is a line early in the book: That “still I’ll try” really won me over.
This line broke my heart, as much as it affirmed it. Isn’t that all we want? People to care? To try? Not to snap, leave, hurt, willfully misunderstand.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
– E.D.E. Bell, Atthis Arts
“Ideas are amazing things. In different hands, A Small Light in the Darkness could be a dystopia, a thriller, and most easily a monster story but under Christiane Knight’s hand, it is a speculative cozy romance.
And isn’t that a delightful thing?
There’s something endearing about how cautious every step taken in Knight’s story is. There’s no shedding of clothes at first sight, but almost a whole chapter devoted to the courage it takes for two people to touch or hold hands. They dichotomy of the protagonist feels real. They are bold yet awkward, stalwart yet self-aware, and kind yet not a sucker.
A Small Light in Darkness is yet another example of why handcrafted is more interesting than AI. Where most stories would accelerate misunderstandings to arguments or even violence, A Small Light in the Darkness, chooses to search out oases in the maelstrom. Even in what could be the most fraught moment of the narrative, rationality and empathy perseveres over the immediacy of action. In this way, the novel feels real.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
– Andrew Hiller, author of Hornytown Chutzpah
“Near-future science fiction that wonderfully mixes the ordinary with neuroscience innovation that we can just see being possible. The narrator (this is a first person story better handled than many of that style) is an atypical, wonderfully fleshed out, realistic woman. Plot is unlikely but not ridiculous and has just the right amount of brilliance and errors. I was able to work out some mysteries before the narrator, but others remained mysterious. I was uncertain about the ending until the last pages. Only one character seems two-dimensional and even she has a bit of depth. The city of Baltimore is practically a secondary character described in both its scholar and its unexpected (to most non-residents) charms.
And enjoyable develop for those who like science fiction with real human beings, some mystery, and some romance.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐
– Beth [Goodreads review]
From the Author’s Notes:
This is a story about relationships, and what we look for in them, and how we can be manipulated by them too. It’s also about what happens when we tamper with our brains, and who can be trusted to do so. And it looks at what makes us who we are, and who we might be if circumstances are slightly changed.
This is also a story that talks about hubris, and what we sacrifice in the name of progress, and what happens when ambition isn’t tempered with empathy and a desire to do what’s best for humanity.
Listen along to the A Small Light in the Darkness Soundtrack!
Tracks that Tryst and Fo share with each other, along with music that comes from Tryst’s radio show and expands the atmosphere of the story; fully streamable on Tidal.
https://tidal.com/playlist/25cd7cff-9375-446c-86b5-2a06cf469221
