The Luminous Dead

When Gyre Price fakes her credentials to land a solo caving expedition deep beneath the surface of a remote planet, she expects danger. What she doesn't expect is Em—the cold, calculating handler on the other end of her comm link who controls everything from Gyre's suit functions to her food supply, and who seems to have no problem using every one of those tools as leverage.

Set in a suffocating world of subterranean tunnels and ancient rock, this sci-fi horror novel pulls readers into one of the most unsettling, claustrophobic atmospheres in recent genre fiction. Gyre is descending into the dark for money—specifically, to find the family she lost. Em is sending her there for reasons she refuses to explain. And somewhere in the crushing black between them, something else is moving.

The hate-to-love tension here is as relentless as the cave walls pressing in. Em withholds information. Gyre pushes back. They need each other to survive, and that need slowly, dangerously transforms into something neither of them is prepared for. Starling writes psychological horror with precision—every drip of water, every malfunctioning display, every whispered transmission feels like it could be the last.

For readers who love their romance forged in genuine terror rather than contr