History Literature / TheseBrokenStars

They couldn't be more different. Lilac is a socialite, heiress to [=LaRoux=] Industries. Tarver is a Major, a war hero who came from nothing. As they struggle to survive, the unlikely pair find themselves drawn together by more than necessity. Without the social pressures that kept them apart, the heiress and the soldier fall in love.

It's a night like any other on board the ''Icarus''. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. Lilac [=LaRoux=] and Tarver Merendsen survive. And they seem to be alone.

Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a young war hero who learned long ago that girls like Lilac are more trouble than they're worth. But with only each other to rely on, Lilac and Tarver must work together, making a tortuous journey across the eerie, deserted terrain to seek help. Then, against all odds, Lilac and Tarver find a strange blessing in the tragedy that has thrown them into each other's arms. Without the hope of a future together in their own world, they begin to wonder... would they be better off staying here forever?

Everything changes when they uncover the truth behind the chilling whispers that haunt their every step. Lilac and Tarver may find a way off this planet. But they won't be the same people who landed on it.

* ChekovsGun: The shiny thing Tarver sees through a window as the ''Icarus'' goes down. For a while it appears that the planet has two moons, but they soon notice one moon is some sort of mirror array. It turns out to have something to do with the research station, although it's not clear what due to SanitySlippage on the part of the scientists.

** Early on in their trek, Tarver finds five bodies in a failed escape pod. While burying them, he takes boots for Lilac from one of the bodies. She baulks, but he assures her that if the people could speak, they'd tell them to take what they can use.

* YourDaysAreNumbered:

* MajorlyAwesome: Major Tarver Merendson. Gained his rank at eighteen for unspecified heroics against insurgents on the planet Avon.

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''These Broken Stars'' is the 2013 first novel in ''The Starbound Trilogy'' by Meagan Spooner and Aimee Kaufman. ''This Shattered World'' followed in 2014 and ''Their Fractured Light'' in 2015.

* TrueBlueFemininity: Tarver first sees Lilac wearing a ballgown in navy blue. She's wearing the same colour, a dressing gown this time, in the final scene.

* YouHaveToBelieveMe: Once Lilac realises the voices she's hearing aren't delusions, she's desperate to prove it to Tarver. When she describes the people whose bodies he buried in perfect detail, he denies that it's them, and when her visions save them from a cave-in he still somehow denies it, mostly from not knowing what to do with the information. It's only when the whispers respond to Lilac's need to be believed by showing him his childhood home that he can't deny it anymore.

** Lilac and Tarver have a ''major'' one as they reach the crest of a hill near their escape pod, just in time to watch the ''Icarus'' fall to the planet's surface, shedding burning escape pods as it goes. They're both clear there will be no survivors.

* PsychicPowers: How the whispers communicate, initially with Lilac, but later with Tarver [[spoiler:after Lilac dies]]. They can make people hear and see things, read minds, and make some solid objects, such as a flower and a water canteen [[spoiler:as well as a copy of Lilac]].

* HeroicBSOD: [[spoiler:Tarver, after Lilac is killed trying to blast through a door. He spends several nights with his gun [[DrivenToSuicide poised under his chin]], until the whispers [[BackFromTheDead give him Lilac back]], and then things get ''really'' complicated.]]

* MenAreStrongWomenArePretty: As he's a Major and she's a socialite, this was always a given. Her CharacterDevelopment revolves around becoming stronger, just in time for Tarver to get an infected wound and need her help.

* DeadPersonConversation: Tarver speaks to his dead brother Alec twice. The first time, it's when he's dying of an infected cut and hallucinating, and use his Alec's form to do so. The second time, it's when he's damaged enough of the shielding at the research station for the whispers to communicate properly (instead of throwing images at people and hoping they get the idea).

* BadLiar: Tarver. When Lilac describes the bodies he buried (that he wouldn't let her see) in perfect detail, Tarver tells her she's wrong. She doesn't believe him for a moment.

* CruelToBeKind: When Tarver approaches Lilac in front of her GirlPosse, she puts him down in the most humiliating fashion possible. She does this so that her bodyguards and Anna don't report on him to her father, which would result in him having an [[ShameIfSomethingHappened unfortunate accident]].
* DeadPersonConversation: Tarver speaks to his dead brother Alec twice. The first time, it's when he's dying of an infected cut. The second time, it's when he's damaged enough of the shielding at the research station for the whispers to communicate properly (instead of throwing images at people and hoping they get the idea).

* MenAreStrongWomenArePretty: As he's a Major and she's a socialite, this was always a given. Her CharacterDevelopment revolves around becoming stronger.

* SanitySlippage: As Lilac struggles to keep up with Tarver through the forest, she starts to hear voices. These voices soon turn to visions, then premonitions. Tarver [[{{Denial}} manages to keep thinking she's hallucinating]] right up until he starts getting visions too.

* SanitySlippage:

[[caption-width-right:328:some caption text]]

* EverybodysDeadDave:

* AnotherDimmension:
* BadLiar:

* YouHaveToBelieveMe:

* HeroicBSOD: [[spoiler:Tarver, after Lilac is killed trying to blast through a door. He spends several nights with his gun poised under his chin, until the whispers [[BackFromTheDead give him Lilac back]], and then things get ''really'' complicated.]]

* TemptingFate: Seriously, who calls a spaceship the ''Icarus''? [[AGodAmI Roderick [=LaRoux=]]], that's who.

** Major Tarver Merendson, war hero from a backwater planet. Also the son of a famous poet whose book Lilac owns, and seems to be quite a poet himself.
* MajorlyAwesome: Major Tarver Merendson. Gained his rank at eighteen for unspecified heroics

It's a night like any other on board the Icarus. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. Lilac [=LaRoux=] and Tarver Merendsen survive. And they seem to be alone.

* PimpedOutDress: Lilac is wearing a flouncy silk emerald ballgown when she and Tarver are marooned on a deserted planet. It's soon in tatters as they trek through forests and across plains and mountains, and she abandons it as soon as she finds a change of clothes. [[spoiler:The whispers replicate it when they bring her back to life.]]