Four squares, from top left to bottom right: galaxy, black and white hands reaching up towards light, a blue robotic hand reaching up, and a sunset. Text in the middle reads, BETWEEN SUN & SHADOW.

When an asteroid struck the planet Pagoménos, it ceased rotating and split between the Daylands and Shadowlands. The asteroid, luminescent with inter-dimensional radiation, destroyed the colony’s advanced technology—and worse, it affected the colonists’ minds and their capacity for memory. Desperate, the pagonians developed a new method of memory storage via a microchip implanted in the brain: the Morpheus chip.

Four squares surrouding text that reads, KORI. Images are a robotic hand, sand dunes, a girl's silhouette against a sunset, and a collection of nuts, bolts, and gears.

Heir to the Daylands monarchy, teenage Kori doesn’t know if she’ll ever escape the watchful eye of her mother, the empress. Isolated and aching for friendship, she installs smuggled Morpheus chip memories into her robot companion, Aspect, attempting to raise them to sentience.

Text in the middle of four squares reads, ASPECT. Images are a scribble that says AWAKE, a human shaking hands with a robotic hand, some wires, and some HTML, all in grayscale.

When a mysterious message from the Shadowlands offers an illegal memory, Kori has a real chance to awaken Aspect—if she can brave the frozen crags, mutated nightfolk, and unchecked radiation of the planet’s dark side.

Text in the middle of four squares reads, ADRIA. Images are a woman's dark silhouette, blue flamaes, a pomegranate spilling seeds shaded bright blue, and a screaming skeleton.

Most nightfolk fear how the asteroid’s radiation has mutated their bodies, but Adria, princess of the Shadowlands, embraces what she is: a monster, and a damn good one. When Kori’s ship plummets into Adria’s lightless world, Adria sees an opportunity to seize political advantage, holding the daylight heiress for ransom. But Kori doesn’t want to go back to the Daylands at all—and as Kori’s kindness, stubbornness, and familiar loneliness break down Adria’s defenses, Adria doesn’t want to send her home, either.

Collection of squares, from top left to bottom right: a blond girl's silhouette, a sunset, a grayscale shadowed woman's mouth, a hand reaching out, a black-and-white galactic sky, a hand reaching for light, a robot, pomegranate seeds on a spoon, and a gas mask.

When Kori and Adria both stumble upon a secret that could disrupt the entire planet, their choice is stark, Maintain a lie for the general populace, or shatter their respective monarchies forever. Kori can become more than her mother’s echo; Adria can carve an identity beyond monster or princess. But to do it, they’ll have to work together, even as forbidden passion blooms between them.

BETWEEN SUN & SHADOW is a standalone YA science fantasy: a sapphic reimagining of Hades & Persephone in outer space. Learn more about the author, Laura Genn, on the home page.