University student Alex Sharma, high society attorney Gwen Mendez, and sheltered young woman Tessa Corcoran are connected by a universe-altering secret.

After his parents and sister are killed in an aircar accident, Alex Sharma moves from Earth to Mars to start a new life at Kepler University, his father’s alma mater. He soon realizes that his father was not who he seemed, and before long the strands of Ben Sharma’s secret second life ensnare Alex in a web of interplanetary intrigue and personal alliances he didn’t even know existed. When he begins dating Gwen’s niece, the ambitious, worldly Natalie, it sets in motion a chain of events that sends Gwen scrambling to keep her carefully built life from unraveling.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Settled Space, Tessa Corcoran’s simple village life on Copernicus is fast becoming more complicated. With her father suffering from a mystery ailment that confounds medical science and her boyfriend trying to persuade her over to his radical political views, she must make some difficult decisions. The complications continue when Tessa, Alex, and their mutual best friend Ric discover the hidden history between their families–a history that has affected all three of them more than they know, in ways that will have massive repercussions down the line.

As their journey takes them from Mars to Copernicus to the most obscure corners of Settled Space and eventually beyond, Alex and Tessa will be forced to confront startling new realities that will change not only their fate but all of humanity’s.