20 posts tagged “romance”
Frederica is my second Heyer read, the first one was Black Sheep which I reviewed here. I enjoyed Black Sheep so I was expecting a similar read, but surprisingly - I actually liked Frederica even more! Maybe it was because this novel was more funny in many aspects than Black Sheep was, so I was smiling more often.
Frederica Merriville is the oldest daughter in the Merriville family and used to raising her siblings and running the household. In this story, her sister Charis is about to have her first season. Frederica is determined that because Charis is so beautiful and unaffected, she should come out in London, so she appeals to the Marquis of Alverstoke, a distant relation. Alverstoke is used to people asking him for things and saying no, but on a whim decides to pretend he was charged my Frederica's dead father to be a guardian to her younger siblings. Alverstoke believes with little work on his part, he'll have some fun, irritate his sisters and go back to his life. What ends up happening is that he gets sucked into the crazy Merriville family antics, and surprisingly finds himself caring for them, especially Frederica, except for the very first time, he's dealing with a woman who is more concerned about her family than his attentions.
This book seemed to be an easier read for me than Black Sheep, but I think it's because reading the first book made me more experienced with Heyer's regency slang, so this time it didn't take me as long to understand what someone was saying! The only confusion I had was sometimes forgetting who was related to who how, but I discovered this useful family tree online (now that I finished the book of course it's useless to me, but may be useful to someone else).
So there were a few funny moments in this book, and I think I'm with many people when I say I enjoyed the scene(s) with the dog (Baluchistan Hound!), and most scenes where Alverstoke finds himself being manipulated by Frederica's younger two brothers. I can understand why this is many people's favorite Heyer novel. Glad I picked this one!
Quick review cause I'm feeling quite lazy:
I had a giftcard burning in my pocket so even though I have a 129 book TBR pile, I went out and bought yet another Linnea Sinclair book.
This is my 5th Linnea Sinclar book and I think I'm beginning to see trends besides the spaceships and action. Not sure how I missed it, but often the couple has to prevent an intergalactic war, and one person is hiding some secret about their true nature or identity from the other. Hmm. Doesn't seem to get old though.
In this case Gillaine Davré is hiding the fact that she's a Raheiran from her love interest Admiral Rynan Makarian, a Khalaran. The Raheiran's are a more technologically advanced race with psychic abilities try not to interfere much with the development of other races. About 342 years ago Gilliane fought against her ancient enemies the Melandans, and was thrown into a time-warp which made her appear in the present where she learns the Khalarans have turned her into a goddess. She is horrified to learn that she is worshipped and that even Ryan is a follower. Things get even more complicated when she learns that not all the Melandans were vanquished and she may have to fight against them again.
There were a few amusing moments throughout the book which kept it pretty light, and a lot of other characters in the space station where the book takes place, which kept things interesting. I'm beginning to see these books as a guaranteed good time. Totally fun to get into. I think I'm a space opera addict. Seriously. I also like how most of them are readable as stand alones, because I seem to be going through a lot of series books.
Out of the rest of the Linnea Sinclair books I've read so far, this was in the top 3, I liked Gillie's spunkiness and irreverance compared to Rynan's seriousness. Their interaction was good. noticed that Rynan has the same problem that Theo from The Down Home Zombie Blues had - trying to protect his woman when she can probably handle things better herself, and this caused some problems.
According to a review in Amazon, this is the far future sequel to Wintertide, a fantasy novel which I haven't read yet.
To be honest, the only reason I picked these two books up at a thrift store was that I was pretty sure I could swap these on paperbackswap. So I admit I wasn't really into these from the get go, but I do like to give things a chance, which is why I read them. What ended up happening is I read about 25% of the book, then skimmed, read a bit more, skimmed on till the end.
Conclusion - If you want a not-serious read, with lots of sex and some cheesy bits, this is for you. I can see these as books someone would find fun, but that just don't do it for me.
I would say that I found small redeeming parts to both books. Ready started off interesting but after chapter one it went downhill. This was about Lise Barton, an author of "kickass women's fiction" who is being stalked. She was afraid her stalker (who calls himself Nemesis) was going to hurt her brother's family so she left them without a very good explanation and moved to Seattle, where her stalker kept up his disturbing game until our hero Joshua Watt shows up to ask why she won't see her family for Thanksgiving. And Able is the third book in the series and focuses on a friend of the hero in book 1 (Ready) - Brett Adams. This time Claire Sharp, a poor part-time student and worker at an assisted living facility is running into problems when someone broke into the house she was renting and tried to kill her. Brett is a friend and feels like he must protect her and find out who is behind the attack. This one had a pretty decent sparring between the two main characters in the first part but it sort of went away.
I guess the problems for me are the following. And here I get pretty bitchy. Look away if you liked these books because it's not pretty:
The main characters are cliched. The men are "badass mercenaries" who have some silly reason for not wanting to be committed, but everytime they see the heroine, their peni get all hard and they are suddenly unaware of their surroundings because they are so into the woman that they just forget their basic training. The women are loners with hardly any friends who need protection and for some reason the police aren't helping/helpful, and the women are unaware of their sexiness because they are insecure. Also even though the women are in their mid-twenties they aren't that experienced with sex and are amazed they feel anything with the mens. And the mens are of course full of experience but it was never like this with anyone else. Yeah. And they explain to the women what the names of the thing they just did was (deep throat) and how they read it in a book but never tried it before. These sex scenes are about 20 pages or so long. I was bored. 20 pages? On and on.. still having sex.. I guess I'm not in the target audience because long sex scenes do not thrill me at all. Also there are sex scenes in water which I'm always disturbed by because I think - urinary tract infection, and that must be uncomfy!! Also the men call each other by code names even though they have known each other for years and years. Code names which are pretty silly - Wolf (tactics), Nitro (bomb expert) and Hotwire (computers). They are very serious about the code names. These are not tongue-in-cheek at all! Wolf has a bedspread on his king sized bed of a wolf that was painted by Hotwire. Also not tongue-in-cheek! But in the book, it's sexy because when Lise first sees it she thinks it's beautiful and is amazed that the wolf on the bedspread looks like Joshua. HUH? How does a man look like a picture of a wolf, even in the eyes? I had a really hard time believing that. Actually a whole bunch of things I just talked about I found hard to believe.
P.S. Wolf = Joshua (book 1 - Ready) , Hotwire = Brett (book3 And Able). Book 2 was Willing, which stars Nitro and which I didn't pick up.
Another problem was that the books focussed so much on the interaction between the two main characters I just felt bored after a while. There were too many contrived scenarios. The scenes weren't that interesting - someone's house most of the time. The bad guys weren't interesting - crazy one dimensional baddies who got caught pretty easily. Then to top it off, the two main characters weren't that interesting either.
The author also kept breaking up the chapters in the weirdest places - mid conversation. Why?
Finally - I guess this is a spoiler for both so behind a gray block, select to read it:
In the end of BOTH BOOKS - the happy ending involves pregnancy. Ug. Sorry, I guess this is just the ultimate cliche for me. And of course this man who has so much trouble admitting to wanting to commit is overJOYed over a kid!? Seemed strangely easy after the fuss through the whole book.
Avoiding having to practice a presentation for work. Let us review a book instead.
Hellbent and Heartfirst was a book I picked up because I enjoyed the author's book Falling Upwards (which I reviewed here). Both books were published by Tor under Paranormal Romance, but Falling Upwards had more of a contemporary fantasy feel and less emphasis on the romance. Meanwhile, Hellbent and Heartfirst spends much more time on the two main characters and less on the "paranormal".
In Hellbent and Heartfirst, the story begins in Mississipi right after Hurricane Katrina. Jacyn Boaz has taken a sabbatical from her graduate work at the University of Texas to work for Oxfam, helping displaced families. Her cousin and her live in a house owned by their grandparents and after work they party with other relief workers and with relatives coming in and out of their house. Jacyn bumps into Jimmy Wayne Broadus, a rancher and rodeo cowboy who also it turns out spends time killing supernatural creatures that harm people. The confusion of Katrina has given the supernatural a way to hide their crimes, and Jimmy Wayne hopes Jacyn will understand and help him in what he does. Turns out, Jacyn is very reasonable because she has an odd relationship with luck that helps her believe in the unexplained.
I ended up not liking this one as much as Falling Upwards. The writing was interesting and intelligent but -
1) The plot. It had two scenes in which our protagonists fight paranormal creatures in the South, but these scenes are really short and anti-climactic. Once they were over I was left thinking - "Was that it? That was easy." and there doesn't seem to be a real resolution. I felt unsatisfied. Some things never get explained - like Jacyn's luck. The book really was about was two southerners who meet, fall in love, and hang out with friends and family. But with a dash of killing baddies. The rest of it was this slow meandering courtship without very much conflict amongst bars, barbeques, and house parties. It was like reading about party-kids settling down except there is a supernatural tint to it all. The relationship was very sweetly described and I ended up feeling like the two were meant to be together, but I thought the author kept trying to convince the reader of this after the reader was already sold. I started to feel like Jacyn and Jimmy Wayne could stop thinking how great the other was now. I was over the color of Jacyn's hair and Jimmy Wayne's eyelashes and lips.
2) There were grammatical errors that I kept running into. This is from someone who misses grammar errors, but I kept being tripped up by sentences with incorrect tenses. It just jarred me.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed:
1) That this was set in the South. That the backdrop was the delta in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the book describes the people dealing with the aftermath in a very personal way. It felt very real. The humidity is a constant. I also liked the personal interactions - how Jacyn's family and friends are groups who drop by without invitation and just eat, drink and live together in an informal environment. Reminds me of my college days (which was in the south by the way). I thought it was nice to have non-stereotypical southern characters. There was a small scene about the use of the words "y'all" and "ain't" that I found interesting too.
2) Really part of #1 - That half of the book is set in Nashville. That's where I went to college, and I think the author captured the city perfectly. I have a lot of fond memories of living there.
P.S. The cover. The scary dark figure to the left of Jimmy Wayne. Creeeeppyy!
I'm on the Eve Kenin mailing list after I read Driven last year and I really enjoyed myself. I think I'm just addicted to high action, high-tech stories that have romance thrown in. When I read Driven, I had a smile on my face because I was just so happy to find something like this. Siberian Ice Truckers!! In the future! Come on now. I reviewed that book over here (Sigh, back in Sept 2007 when my TBR was only 97).
Anyway, I was on the mailing list so when the author of Driven sent out a note about sending ARCs of the second book of that series - Hidden to people willing to review the book, I couldn't reply fast enough. I got the book last week friday, and by sunday- I'd read it all. My fiance got to hear me crow over it too:
Me: *pet pet pets book* "OMG July release date! I got my hands on it in APRIL. That's like 4 months!!!
Him: Yes dear.
OK, so this book continues in the same world as Driven (post apocalyptic, perpetual winter, governed by corrupt people and populated by the dregs of society) but focussing on new characters. You can probably read Hidden without reading Driven, it is pretty easy to grasp what's going on. One of them is Tatiana - sister of Wizard, the hero in Driven (book 1). In Driven Tatiana's whereabouts are unknown, but she is mentioned as someone Raina met, and as Wizard and Yuriko's younger sister. Unlike her older siblings, Tatiana is described as having different powers (empathy seems to be her particular skill). Duncan Bane, the bad guy in book 1 believed she could tell the future, which is something Wizard and Yuriko can't do, but she also was a lot weaker physically and unable to heal as quickly as them.
In Hidden, it is never explained how, but somehow after the events that happened in Driven, Tatiana has escaped her prison and is outside in the frozen Northern Waste. She is a lot stronger than she used to be - apparently she was late to bloom into her powers, but she does have more than before. Her goal is to use them to stop a new bad guy - Dr. Gavin Ward, who for years has been using her as a test subject, and has developed a deadly plague using her genetic material crossed with some nasty diseases. All she knows is that there is a secret underground lab and that someone named Tolliver is in charge. Her plan is to completely destroy this lab, Dr Ward, and Tolliver.
Following a lead Tatiana runs into a mysterious stranger - Tristan, who shows up again later, and after something happens, they both end up trapped underground. Both of them are attracted to the other, but both have their secrets about who they are and what they can do. In terms of plot, there was a part where I thought Tatiana should be figuring out what's going on a wee bit sooner, but I guess this could be a nit. More nits - there were a couple of parts where I thought things felt a little glossed over and unexplained - like contacting Ward, or how Tatiana escaped, or even what happened to certain characters. The best part is probably the action. There were some scenes that had me on the edge of my seat (Residence Evil scenarios and a tense scene with a laser grid). Other action outdoors in the Waste against giant trucker rigs and gunfights - this seemed similar to Driven, so didn't excite me as much.
Because Hidden was set in the same place as Driven, the Northern waste, I was already used to this area and it didn't wow me in the same way the second time around. I still felt that it was well-written and interesting, and I could really see the snow and ice in my mind's eye, but I would love to see other parts of this world other than the Northern Waste. I'm beginning to wonder what the cities and other places mentioned like Neo-Toyko look like. There are hints about acrobats in Neo-Toyko, and at one point Tatiana talks about a conservatory with trees somewhere else and I was really drawn to that, but the plot in this case didn't lend to much travelling out of the Waste.
I also had an interesting time comparing Tatiana with Wizard. In Driven, Wizard is almost robotic in his analytical responses and lack of emotion. Meanwhile, in Hidden, Tatiana often responds to people in a really formal, analytical way like Wizard, but her abilities seem to make her more in tune with her emotions than Wizard was. And because she as had very little social interaction, she doesn't really know how to read people's facial expressions or hide her own feelings under a mask. I like that there was a difference between the siblings as to how their upbringing affected them. I was also interested to see how Tristan has an unusual for the Waste upbringing - often trying to be chivalrous - shielding Tatiana, eating with a napkin on his lap. While Tatiana found this odd and fascinating, she decides not to be insulted by it. Definitely a different interaction between these two from what we saw between Raina and Wizard.
Overall - Addictive writing, full of action and an interesting world, but perhaps one grade below what I felt for Driven. I wasn't as *spellbound* this time around, but it did make for a quick and enjoyable read. That's a positive review, but I think maybe Driven made my expectations very high. Not sure if my judgement is colored by my memory of book 1..? Would I think this if I hadn't read Driven first? Not sure, but it could be that someone reading Hidden without having read Driven would have a higher opinion.
The cover - I think I like the artwork on this cover a smidge more than the first book, probably because the facial features of the two characters are clearer. I'm undecided on the typeface though. I think I like Driven's better.
I think I entered all possible contests for this book, but in the end I bought it (TBR.. um.. 135, not getting smaller). Grimspace is actually the first book in a series, but the story is self contained. This is a book that falls under the science fiction romance category. If you like Linnea Sinclair you may like Ann Aguirre too. Actually, I think Sinclair is one of her beta readers from the acknowledgments I read.
The main character Sirantha Jax is a jumper - someone with a rare J-gene, that allows her to "jack into grimspace" and with a pilot, send a spaceship through a hyperspace jump. At the start of this novel Sirantha finds herself confined and under surveillance by the Corp after a horrific accident which has killed everyone on her ship but herself. The Corp seems to think that Sirantha made a mistake, and she may go to trial for it. Meanwhile, she also feels worried about her sanity (J-gene carriers are known for frying their minds). In steps March, who offers to break her out of her prison - telling her it's either escape or let the Corp break her with their therapy ("They don't want to know what happened; they just want to ensure you're in no condition to talk about it. Ever."). In order to escape March has to replace Jax's dead pilot - which is the equivalent to a forced marriage according to Jax - because in grimspace the jumper and their pilot become so in tune they are practically one person. Once Jax escapes she gets caught up in whatever March is up to and much space action stuff ensues.
Lazy bullet time:
- Overall very enjoyable and addictive to read. It delivers what I wanted, which was action, space stuff and some romance.
- Each chapter reminds me like a chapter in a Nancy Drew mystery - it tends to end on a "dun dun dun!" note. I thought this habit was a bit odd, not really bothersome, just wasn't sure why it was that way. Also each chapter ended up being very short - there are 53 chapters in all, so I guess you can say there were a lot of - oh what happens next? moments. Lots of action going on.
- Although I said this reminded me of a Linnea Sinclair novel, the writing is very different. There is a lot more grit in this - more death, more grey areas, especially with the heroine - she's not always a good person. She would rather look after herself first, while March wants to save everyone. This was interesting.
- The book ends with a definite conclusion and it feels like a stand alone, but there is a larger story arc you catch a glimpse of, and so I can see where the author could continue. I'm glad that it does because I think I did say after I finished this - "There should be more" and I double checked and there was. Ann Agguire's website says book 2 is Wanderlust (August 2008), which will be followed by Doubleblind and Killbox. Sounds cool. I do like the covers so far too.
- A lot of interesting secondary characters make appearances. Some of them do not stay around for long. They may show up in later books. Some of them I wish I got to know better before they disappeared.
- There was an interesting bit about assassins in this that I really want to be followed up on in book 2. Really do.
- There was a creepy Jurassic Park bit in this too. Guess I can't say much beyond that without spoiling.
- A couple of times the banter incited a laugh out of me (the baby z bit).
- Excerpt of Grimspace. Excerpt of Wanderlust.
I won this book at Dear Author a couple of weeks(?) ago with the promise to post something about the book. I just got it on the 21st and so I've been reading like mad (well first I had to finish Exit Strategy) to post about it before the 25th when it comes out. That's today! I made it!
This book blew me away. I felt completely depressed reading half of it - Lord and Lady Tremaine have a "marriage of convenience", living in different continents, not saying a harsh word about one another, but for all purposes they are strangers - not seen together since the night of their wedding, ten years ago. In between the present story there are flashbacks that explain the past and what happened to make things the way they are now. Gigi betrayed Camden when they were both young and in love because she was desperate not to lose him, but conversely it was that very act that tore them apart. Camden is completely immovable in his decision to leave her and reside elsewhere, no matter how much she begged at first, even though this separation was probably as heartbreaking to him as it was to her (I could have just screamed). When Gigi finally gave up, they both took their own lovers and lead their own lives, far apart.
What brings this situation to a head after ten years of separation is the start of this story. At the beginning of Private Arrangements, London is agog over the gossip that Lady Tremaine has petitioned for divorce, because she want's to marry someone else! Even more shocking is the news that Lord Tremaine himself is in England, and knocking at her door.
Gah. I can't even explain how wretching this was. Their first meeting and talking is shown to the reader in flashbacks, in complete contrast to the present time of the story. They are both engaging and witty characters, clearly well-matched for one another and no one else. And I loved the writing - it had a light, lyrical touch, with a lot of wit. I really felt them falling for each other, I felt how desperate Gigi was, and how devastated they both were over what happened after their wedding. I saw the betrayals on both sides, and the stupid decisions which led to even stupider ones. And worst of all YEARS go by. TEN years, that kills me. I wish it was one year! I could have handled that better, the timeline and all the missed chances in that time just sent daggers into me. I was getting annoyed - the author is toying with my emotions, why is Camden being such a jerk?! Why can't he forgive her? Is this author perhaps EVIL?
But then the more I read the more I understood. It was a different time then, the rules of honor were different, and that played a part in this. The book is set in the 1880's and 90's and it adheres to that well. Dispite his own past decisions, Camden comes back and no matter how calm they pretend to be, the chemistry is sizzling. Not only that, the tables get flipped and Camden begins to realize how desperate Gigi was not to lose him ten years ago. Now it's his turn to contemplate doing all he can to keep Gigi his wife, tied to him always. I was quite pleased when I realized that - Poetic Justice? Good.
But 10 years?! TEN!!! I suppose this is the one thing that kills me with this book since I keep going on about it.
My favorite part was the last 50 pages. A keeper, just to read and get to that part.
Meanwhile there is also another side story that I quite liked - with Gigi's mother, Mrs. Rowland, the pushy mother, hell-bent on her daughter marrying a duke, and then hell-bent on her daughter and son-in-law getting back together. When Gigi files for divorce, and she sees that Gigi may actually go through with it, she looks around for *other* dukes in the neighborhood, which leads to some amusing consequences that I really liked reading about. And she's hell-bent there too.
Here are less ranty about 10 years reviews at Dear Author and The Good, The Bad and the Unread (1, 2)
Yes I AM reading all the books Linnea Sinclair has ever written. This is the newest one - came out end of last year. And it's about zombies. Unintentional - but I've read three books with zombies in them this year! This is one, then there's Happy Hour of the Damned by Mark Henry, and finally - Dead Sexy by Tate Hallaway (which I have to review on here). Are zombies becoming a trend? I thoughtfully stroke my chin.
So basically - what I usually think about Sinclair's books - lasers, spaceships, sci-fi, action fun stuff which I seem to love right now. Space opera, yay! This is totally that. Oh and kissing, as you see on the cover.
In this book the zombies are this alien hybrid created in a lab - half machine, half tenticle-y animal, they move in a pack, guided by the zombie leader (C-Prime), they jump out of portals and suck out people's lifeforces by clamping onto their heads with a big tentacle (braiiinnn). I was a bit confused about the mechanics of the lifeforce-sucking until I figured out they used the tentacles. Liked the alien-zombie angle. Anyway, Jorie Mikkalah is a Guardian Force commander trying to kill all the zombies on the "nil" planet Earth, while Theo Petrakos is a divorced cop who gets caught up in the crossfire, eventually joining up with the Guardians to help save the planet.
I had a good time reading this. There were some interesting dynamics in here (a love triangle and some bad exes), and there wasn't a silly misunderstanding between the two characters - no silly drama, just a real worry about how they are literally from different worlds. I liked the romance (but my favorite is still Games of Command), and it was balanced well with the plot of the zombie invasion problem. I liked how the language differences were overcome (Jorie realizes that English is like the alien language of Vekran) and they do kind of get to know each other as they improve their communications. Still, I was a bit disappointed to find out that some Vekrans were stranded near Earth at some point, because *I* wanted a tongue in cheek reference to the movie "Galaxy Quest". Theo jokingly mentions warp speed and Jorie asks him how he knows what that is and I totally thought of "Galaxy Quest"! But it was not meant to be.
I also liked how Jorie is independent and can take care of herself - she's better what she does than any other guy in the story, so thing that nagged at me was how often Theo would try to save her. He'd throw himself at her while they were shooting in order to get her away from some tentacle. But he's the zombie-killing novice, not her. Yes, he loves her and wants to protect her, but I thought it would be cooler if he didn't feel the need to be all "I am man and shall save you my woman!!". He should be all: "Oh look at her killing things, I'm so proud" and just watch her back, no throwing himself at her to shove her from harm's way. At least she saves him too, but she sensibly shoots things instead of shoving him. Other nit - Jorie thinks to herself about other women who haven't snapped up Theo and wonders if they are "blind and unsexed" like three times at least throughout the book. Nothing against the phrase, but it's unique enough that I noticed when it was reused.
I need to buy more Sinclair books but I must hold myself back because of the TBR. I also want Ann Agguire's Grimspace because it's supposed to be in this genre. I went to B&N and it wasn't there!! WHY.
This is a fantasy novel by an author who usually writes romance. I hear she has some popular time travel romances out. I think I was curious to read this because I liked her voice in the The Queen in Winter anthology. There's a little half-teasing tilt to it, especially when the characters banter with one another.
So this is a straight fantasy, with a little romance (not really in your face). Adhémar, king of Neroche has suddenly lost his magic powers, his magical sword doesn't work anymore, and he's very put out by it. His youngest brother Miach, who is also the archmage, suggests that he travel to the most unlikely place to find someone who can wield the sword. At the same time, a mercenary named Morgan who has been asked to bring a magical dagger to the king. They cross paths but Adhémar can't reveal his identity or the reason for his quest and Miach can't reveal why she's going towards the palace or that's where she's headed. Miach pops in to check on his brother and starts tagging along because he's interested in Morgan even though he's supposed to be monitoring the kingdom's borders. There's some light banter between the brothers (king - grumpy, archmage - deflecting grumpiness with practiced ease), and also humor from Morgan's belief that the king is a huge jackass who should keep his mouth shut. She proclaims this any chance she gets. The conflict here is that Morgan loathes magic but Miach is a mage so he worries about what she thinks when she finds out. At the same time Morgan is very troubled by her quest and about learning that she has an affinity for magic.
The book started out amusing - I really liked the beginning, but after a while it went into the usual fantasy quest route and I started to lose interest. There wasn't anything very urgent or compelling going on that would keep me glued to the page, the pacing was quite relaxed. Perhaps too relaxed. I almost walked away from this book even though I only had 50 pages left, I just wanted to skim the end and had to make myself read it (and that's where more interesting things started to happen). I'd recommend this for readers who don't generally read fantasy and want something light and wholesome to read. I also had the random thought that this story lends itself to being easy to read out loud. I was thinking - "I bet my grandmother could read this out and it would be ok, because this book has nothing really dirty in it". Maybe some cursing and graphic violence would give it some pizzaz, but I don't think that's the author's thing, and it wouldn't fit into the rest of the story anyway. Oh well - it wasn't a bad read, but to me, a bit tame after what else I've been reading lately. This is the first book of a trilogy; the second book is The Mage's Daughter and continues this story.
P.S. My fiance didn't like this cover. Hmmph! I ignored him. The only thing I have to say about the cover is - she should be wearing pants. She's supposed to be a mercenary.
Have I mentioned I think these books are addictive? Yes? I read one and 2 weeks later you get three reviews about books by this author. I think I'm going to go through her whole backlist soon, but I'm actually holding myself back at the moment. I'm trying to make the TBR go down first (131).
Side note - amazon is only showing the newer covers, at least to upload to vox. I think the line probably looks more cohesive with the new covers - an amorous couple plus spaceship. It also looks like its romance and science fiction now. I have the older cover though. I think they both have pros and cons but I think they're both equally nice looking.
This book is about Captain Tasha Sebastian (Sass), a member of the United Coalition forces and Admiral Branden Kel-Paten of the Triad. Sass has just been assigned to Kel-Paten's ship as part of the new Alliance between their governments, but she has a hidden past she doesn't want him to know about. Meanwhile he has something he doesn't want her to know about. He's a biocybe - half man, half machine, supposedly unable to feel emotion, but he's been secretly pining for her for years. Enter mercenary Jace Serafino. He's just been rescued by the Alliance and he has some major secrets of his own that could bring down parts of the Alliance. Sass and Dr. Eden Fynn (Sass's best friend) get suspicious when Jace reveals some of what he knows. They don't know who to trust.
As with the rest of the books, there's a lot of action, space fights, and cool technology bandied about. I always enjoy the world building. I also have noted that each of the books so far seem to be in their own universe (or part of the universe) - I haven't seen overlapping names of governments, religions, or races yet. Unless I missed one. There are common things in terms of characters using coding skill to hack into computers or ship mainframes, or being brilliant at fixing a dying spaceship on the fly. I love reading those bits.
In this book we also see more than one romance - it's two parallel romances. The center one was Sass and Kel-paten's, and I prefered that one out of the two. Probably because of the comparison of Kel-paten's experience in his worklife compared to the utter lack of experience he has with personal matters. It made his personality strangely vunerable and endeering to read. At times I felt like *wincing* because he was so out of his element trying to deal with Sass and his feelings.
Another interesting element was that there were pets in this - the furzels, which I imagined to look exactly like cats, except these were psychic, translocating, fighter cats. They talked to each other in a childlike way that provided comic/cuteness relief (once or twice it was a little too much for me but overall, they were amusing). I could imagine my cat talking this way sometimes.
This book is the most recent book published of the ones I've read so far. The author's website says Games of Command starts of in a similar way to her book Command Performance (part one of a series, but the rest was never published), but most of it is new. And out of all the three books read so far (this, Gabriel's Ghost and Finder's Keepers), this is my favorite. It's a keeper, and Linnea Sinclair is on my autobuy list. I'm having a lot of fun reading these. Crack I tell you.
