This alien romance had a few elements that I really loved:
✨ a rejected mates romance plot that involved a lot of rejecting her and then standing in the shadows and watching her like a creep—the best
✨ a genuinely scary looking alien guy
✨ not your usual ‘newly spacefaring humans make contact with advanced alien societies and are treated like the most important/sexually attractive group of people in the universe’ story—nope, they were treated like stateless migrants and sent to labour on a mining planet by aliens who didn’t give two craps about them
✨a spooky atmosphere to the mining planet setting, which I was pleasantly surprised by
✨ the group of humans had both men and women in it—this is such a green flag for me. I just love the social dynamics this brings to the human-human interactions

Basically: a great premise, pining, and really standout sci-fi world building. This is the kind of stuff that my five star alien romance book dreams are made of.

But then it just had one thing that bugged me. So much so that it knocked this down to a three:
▪️ it hinted way too hard at everything. You know what I’m talking about? There’s only so much ‘she’s so small, she fits into tight spaces… he could complete his mission is only he could fit into that small space… whatever will they do??’ that I can handle 😆