Valerie Valdes.
Where Peace is Lost.
Harper Voyager. 2023
rating : 3.5 : worth reading
review : 9 September 2026
Where peace is lost, may we find it.
Five years ago, Kelana Gardavros lost everything in the war against the Pale empire. Now Kel Garda is just another refugee living on the edge of an isolated star system. No one knows she was once a member of an Order whose military arm was disbanded and scattered acress the galaxy. And no one knows that if her enemies found her, they might destroy the entire world to get rid of her.
Where peace is broken, may we mend it.
Kel’s past intrudes in the form of a long-dormant Pale war machine, suddenly reactivated. If the massive automaton isn’t stopped, at best it will carve a swath of devastation that displaces thousands of people. At worst, it will kill every sentient creature on the planet.
Where we go, may peace follow.
When two strangers offer to deactivate the machine for a price, Kel and a young friend agree to serve as their guides. The journey through swamps infested with predators and bandits is bad enough, but can they survive more nefarious dangers along the way? And will Kel’s fear of revealing her secrets doom the very people she’s trying to protect?
Where we fall, may peace rise.
Kel has been hiding out on a back-woods planet for the last five years, a hunted refugee from the war with the Pale. Then an abandoned war machine starts to go rogue, and Kel finds herself escorting a couple of adventurers to disarm it, before it destroys the planet, or worse, brings the Pale back. But there is more behind the machine’s behaviour than a simple malfunction, and Kel finds herself caught up in events that might destroy her hard-won peace.
This is an engaging adventure story, as Kel and team slog though wilderness, meet up with bandits, encounter enemy soldiers, make friends along the way, and try to save the planet despite everything.