Spaceships and Love

So have you read the first four books? No you say? Do you plan on reading any of these? Yes you say? THEN DON'T READ THIS REVIEW. Why you ask? Because some things I mention in this review aren't a spoiler- not for someone who has read this entire series up to this book, but for YOU, that haven't read this series, this will be Spoilerland, so you are warned. Continue forward at your own risk reader.


I looked forward to this book desperately as I do with any series I adore. This is an unusual series for me because it's definitely "cleaner" than most of the stuff I love to consume yet Buroker keeps me captivated through the ensemble cast and the relationships between all of them.

I was hesitant starting this book because I knew it was going to have a lot of Maldynado POV involved and I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it. When I read a series what will make me continue to read it has as much to do with what an author decides to do with the direction of the plot as much or more to do with the character they decide to represent POV wise in particular books. Maldynado is a charming rascal, a fop to all that know him despite his considerable fighting skills and an outcast from his noble Warrior Caste family. Throughout the entire series he is portrayed as charming and funny eye candy that will come in handy when you need a fighter but lazy when it comes to team spirit. Surprisingly Maldynado becomes a much more sympathetic character in this book and I found myself enjoying him more- his conversations with Yara and other members of the group were hilarious and priceless! His dismay when he has to constantly struggle to get Sespian to try to trust him because of his ties to his revolting family is sad to watch. Poor Maldynado, I thought through this entire thing. He's a lovable fool who has some hidden depths that even Yara finds herself covertly intrigued by.

You will still see plenty Amaranthe and Sicarius, almost not enough sometimes but it is well reasoned given the story. I found the interactions between Sicarius and Amaranthe to be satisfying - yet I wanted more. I want more. I need more. Did I already say that? I say this because I feel like surely in real life Ms. Buroker is a serious tease. I don't need graphic depictions of sex to float my boat, but ah don't worry, you won't get any of that here! It's clean I tell you, but I'm impatiently waiting. Impatiently.../tapping foot furiously. Action Jackson- we readers need some in this story. I feel by the end of this book we are at the precipice and holding our breath. It's uncomfortable. Only the afterword, (is this becoming habit now Ms. Buroker? :p ) ameliorated me somewhat.


There isn't a ton of Booksie and Akystr although they are in the mix as usual. I find the thoughts Amaranthe has about her team refreshing and realistic. Some Very Important Events happen this installment.

Sespian- deserves his own notice and paragraph. I find him underwhelming. More of a shadow of a character at times but he comes out more in this book than any previous with some good moves and commentary and sensible distrust of Amaranthe's crew and his new world. But he's too naive to me to be completely likable and too vulnerable and well I guess he's accurately rendered as the youth that he is. And frankly most 19 year olds(that is my guess for his age), even the very best of them, the most intelligent and amazingly ambitious of them are just not really attractive to me (uh I guess that's good since I'm in my late 30's and all but I mean as CHARACTERS IN A NOVEL AS ROMANCE POTENTIAL mmkay? :p ).

Big secrets are revealed, so much action that is normal with this series happens the entire book, moments occur that any fans of this series will be happy to see.

The ending was not my favorite but it's nothing to rant about.

Per Buroker's afterword, I'll be purchasing Encrypted soon since that series is supposed to tie into this one and we'll find out more by Book 6 of this Emperors Edge series.

I love this series and I'll continue to read anything of Burokers!

I really enjoyed this book!

One of the major issues readers will have with this series in general is that sometimes Ms. Pamfiloff doesn't know when to stop regarding cutesy internal dialogue or jokey explanations. That said, this book and the books in the series had me laughing. If you can get through this without being overly annoyed with the perpetual Penelope soliloquys (ugh and how do you pluralize soliloquy? I don't even know) in her own head you will enjoy this.

This book is about Penelope and Kinich. Kinich thinks Payals and really any non God race should not procreate with the 14 gods. Apparently Kinich is the Sun God and the leader of the Gods and he has an agenda to ensure that his perspective that Gods procreating is bad mojo is officially instituted among his brethren. Meanwhile- Cimil, in her mostly entertaining ways (she's an almost Nyx knockoff from the Kresely Cole series IMO, but I loved the irreverence of the Valkries in that series and generally enjoy that attitude in characters so I do not care!) gets her hands dirty all over the place to steer events of the world and lives toward an unknowable goal. This includes setting Penelope up with Kinich with a few strange rules and an offer Penelope can scarcely refuse. Penelope is taking care of her incredibly sick mother and is under financial life draining strain to do it all by herself.

This installment of the series has fun twists and turns IMO if abruptly introduced. I loved the interactions of the Gods and the summits. I really enjoyed the introduction of Zac and I think he will figure largely in the next book. Although I will say that Zac's interactions with Penelope is blatantly suspect and makes me wonder if he's truly on the good guy team. I hope he is because he sounds vaguely like a sexy dreamboat of a God and I'll gladly read his romance later in the series if it's going to happen!

This ends on a cliff hanger dammit! I can handle that if the next book is coming out soon. I'll keep telling myself that so I don't fume. I'll be happier if the next book really wraps this Apocolypse up and I loved the ending otherwise.

This will be great for fans of PNR looking for another different series. Also if you like super huge men with super huge fun manly accessories you will enjoy this series. New races are introduced in this one and YAY for that! So far no shifters (thank god, I mean, enough with the blue collar motorcyle driving holey jean hairy alphas thank you!) but several vampires, Gods, Payals (offspring of humans+Gods), a new paranormal that I will not mention bc it's a major spoiler but I LOVED it, and according to Cimil, unicorns, leprechauns, and of course the evil Mayan priests.

I'll be getting the next one as soon as it hits Amazon.

Briefly:

Good for those that want futuristic sci fi romance- but don't want so much science fiction LOL :), if you want an HEA, here it comes! It reads more like light fantasy. It's a nice story, nothing supremely original, easy read, absolutely beautiful heroic couple and insurmountable odds to overcome to save the world. If that's your thing, get this! I enjoyed it mildly, nothing truly detrimental to say about, but nothing outstanding either.
Enjoy.

Firstly, the information blurby thing that provides the reader with some indication about what this book is about is scant. I got this for my Kindle after trawling through pages and pages of recommends off of my trashy reading habits and this little gem popped up. All sci fi? Some romance?- I wondered. Either way the other reviews on Amazon piqued my interest.

[For those interested this is Prime eligible on Amazon]

I would NOT categorize this a futuristic science fiction romance, people. Is there a relationship? Uh yes, there are relationships. I don't really know how to articulate what necessarily makes this LESS a futuristic "romance" vs straight up sci fi but my gut instinct tells me that some women will find this book borderline horrible, more males that like sci fi and don't mind an actual relationship happening provided it isn't bodice ripper wtfuckery will find this book has enough of a more realistic sci fi feel that they might prefer. Yes, I said "realistic"- I mean that there isn't an "aliens needs woman" trope going in here, the males in the story are not provided for the sole satisfaction of floating us women down the river of relationship fantasy. These characters are being shown to us ugly violent warts and all. No lace here, no princesses from a far galaxy. I just don't want to mislead you- ye space erotica or futuristic romance fans ok?

This is a story about survival. Normally I despise anything that focuses on crazy depressing elements but sometimes a story can keep you wondering what happens next and how the hell your protagonist is going to keep going on and you cannot put it down. I felt this way reading this. This would probably make a really great sci fi flick (better than Prometheus for SURE lol).

We have Jennifer, our protagonist, and her two crew members; Matt and Bodie. Jennifer is a high achieving do gooder who wants to prove to the world that she can do anything her star astronaut father did and do it better. Matt is just a major prick. You'll agree with me I think..well mostly. While Matt is a man you would want to slap a few times for good measure every time he opens his mouth- he does have very valid reasons for at least resenting certain things that do happen. I'll give him that. Yeah Matt, I can see why you're pissed. But after that Matt? Grow up and everything you do in this book practically makes me wonder how you ever ever got past psychological screening for any space endeavor through a governmental agency. Bodie is Jennifer's uncle. All of these people have their good points and extremely grand flaws. Jennifer is the most likeable of the three crew members but I will be honest despite my love for this tale- my gripe on Jennifer is that she will mention a few times how she's known for being some apparently hard core bitch back home on Earth because she's just so Alpha at her job. I can see how being stranded on an alien hostile world would reduce a normal human to almost idiocy. Even stellar people like astronauts probably would have issues too when experiencing a castaway situation like this. But I didn't see this whatsoever in her character as she struggles on Eden (her supposed driven Alpha-ness). So that was incongruent in my opinion.

Then you have Fly. You'll meet Fly. I don't think I should say anything else about him. He's....interesting. Read all about him.

Anyway - my mind is meandering like crazy so I'll wrap this up and say this is a quick read and it's a good tale.

I gave it five stars because I enjoyed this immensely and found this refreshing. Wise does not take the easy way out with the relationships in this book (mostly) and I appreciated reading that.

This is surprisingly good! I think I need to amend my profile to state that I clearly love the dollar store for strange stuff, wacky stuff, cheesy stuff, and futuristic romance.

Generally speaking it seems to me that if you read "erotica" you will have to contend with far less character development than straight up "romance". I've seen people lambaste this book because it has less character development than wished for and I'd agree. But I still managed to enjoy it.

The Good:
- Rask and his fellow Castians are completely naive about sex and this is hilarious and funny to me. Scholey did manage to write a harrowing yet hilarious first meeting between Rask and Grace that I found enjoyable.
- The reason for fleeing Earth while questionable (in terms of why the apocalypse is actually happening) was well written and I think realistic. Certainly dangerous, gritty, depressing.
-Rask is SWEET. Oh yes, he's just..sweet. While you are not going to get epic development of the characters here, you *will* get a nice sense of Rask and his sweetness and caring.

My argument: People have griped that the women are just one dimensional, well ok, perhaps. Perhaps! But when I think about it? I'd say if I left Earth the way Grace does- would I want an absolutely astonishingly handsome faithful hunk whose only care is to protect me and care for who CANNOT LIE? I'll take it. Yes! Sign me up. Whatever, this is the fantasy aspect to satisfy us female readers. This cover is ultra cheese ( I do not like the cover but I won't subtract for it!) the story is ultra cheese. I like cheese sometimes! Ok, I like cheese a lot, this isn't Parmesan Reggiano - it's ooey gooey freaking smoked Cheddar melted on your homemade mac & cheese. Rask is going to protect you, he's going to learn how to ..you know..be a man from YOU, er Grace. Plus he'll give you an extra 900+ years on your lifespan. What's not to like? Plus he's fertile unlike a vampire. Yeah. He has fangs but they are just scary and fun fangs.

The Bad:
So human men are bad okay? I do not know why this has to be. We do see some spark of decency in at least ONE human male in this story, but it seems to be a token good human man moment. I really hate contrasting fake sexy alien men with huge but gentle walking boners with evil human men. I know it's totally stupid of me but it lessens my enjoyment of the story. It's a common thing for a writer to make someone else the villain so the heroine leans toward the intended hero, but most of the time this is just ultra lazy plotting IMO.

Also this book has some info dumps disguised as conversations lol. Well they would be honest and necessary questions for Grace, indeed, but those put off by info dumps will roll their eyes. I didn't find it heavy duty but it does slow the story down and isn't entirely graceful.


I agree with others, the last half of the book seems more rushed and less considered by the author and a rush to the HEA or HFN.

Read this if you like your HFN, HEA's, alien sex, aliens who happen to look like humans magnified and with all the best traits of your human female preferences.

All in all, I'm going to get the next book and read it tonight- so yeah I really liked this. These Castians are adorable and if I have to leave Earth because of the apocalypse I'd gladly accept one.

I simply do not have time to write full length thoughtful reviews right now, sorry, so here are my quick thoughts on this:

Really liked this! I enjoyed particularly that Sydelle wasn't slobbering all over North the moment she met him. Despite that she always dreamed of leaving her small desert drought ridden town she isn't a complete teen yokel when rugged and mysterious wizard man walks in to twist her away from everything she knows. 2 pts for Sydelle. I liked the disagreements between North and Sydelle, they seemed authentic and realistic.
I did not enjoy the Queen. Yeah- wish washy much? In fact I hated her guts. It spoiled an otherwise great book for me. I mean it didn't *ruin* the book, but it irked me a whole lot. Particularly because she was very dismissive and her decisions are unforgivable to me. Well we can't like very character in every book right? It isn't as if the Queen is the primary character, or even the villain, but damn, I really wanted to shoot her in the face. Sue me, I'm human. Very very human. ETA: The Queen is admirable certainly- but I root for Sydelle. The Queen can shove it.

Otherwise this was a great book if you like YA, but you don't have to be a YA addict to enjoy this (I am NOT a YA lover, I read them when I find the plot compelling for whatever reason but most YA tends to be either stupid or dystopian and I hate both unless it's entertaining).

So you like wizards, magic, light fantasy and red hair and plucky heroines? Get this.

3 stars means "I Liked it":

MINOR SPOILERS

This book is well written but the major issue I take with it is the management of expectations. Writing is nicely done. But the tone of the story is sort of disorienting and if you're walking into this book expecting light and fluffy space romance DO NOT EVEN BOTHER. And now that I've perused some other reviews of this book I see that I did not suffer alone in my expectations about what kind of book I was getting into. As I commented while reading this- the cover art- the female model alone looks more Mass Effect/Shepard-ish vs the peasant village girl Linnea is. Repeatedly there are descriptions of how coarse her clothing is and how self conscious she feels vs the Pilot Masters she is surrounded by on Nexus. I know that often a book cover is misleading- sometimes fans will pitch a fit because the cover model has the wrong kind of hair, or the models are wearing clothing that doesn't work with the story or something but trust me, this cover does this story NO justice. It's a disservice to the work unfortunately.

I felt disoriented during this entire read because my expectations were not in line with what happened in the story at all. This is a grim dystopia. Sure there are planets within the "Hidden Worlds" that are living the high life, they have plenty of commerce, population and a hearty contract with the ruling Pilot Masters (that determine where wealth happens anyway). But when anyone can expect their planet to die a horrible zombie grey goo death without any protection or prevention it's a harsh world is it not? When your two main characters, the heroine and the hero are struggling through torture, rapes, absolute and complete subjugation, seriously authoritative governments and familial arrangements- it is even surprising that this book provides an HFN. I was amazed at that! I had a tough time finishing, I have a tough time when the protagonist is suffering and suffering and suffering and I do not see the possible light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like screaming to the author GIVE THEM A BREAK FFS!

I want to give this a higher rating because the writing has some truly beautiful moments but overall I have a hard time liking and enjoying an absolutely oppressive depressing book. I do. This is just part of my enjoyment when I read- I don't want to walk away depressed. I can handle violence, serious topics, wars, but there are different ways to handle tone, consequence and the readers ability to hope. I think so at least. I can say that within this universe, The Hidden Worlds universe, everything pretty much makes sense according to its internal logic and proceeds as it would and should given the circumstances. That doesn't make it anymore fun for me to read though :.

Bottom Line:
Some beautiful writing, I enjoyed that, far too dystopian and dark for me and it barely eked out an HFN. The cover should not look like pulpy fiction space opera action funz because it simply aint.

Yes!!!
I bought this book last night I think right off my finishing book #1 and I finished this today (reading on the beach- it is one of my top pleasures of life!).
Moira is in over her head but she's surrounded by golden loyalty. I am relieved that there wasn't any "you think everyone is loyal but NO hee hee there is this one character that hates your guts on your crew!" scenario going on.

Namur sends Ennis to Fuck-Up-Mothball station. Our poor Ennis and how my heart bleeds for him. He's tortured and haunted and depressed and he feels impotent. He goes through the ringer this book!


I love science fiction and I don't need any of my science fiction to be the most cutting edge perplexing stuff known to man for me to be entertained. I do like my science space opera fixes. This series gives me my fix so nicely. I've mainlined all kinds of "straight" sci fi my whole life and only discovered this thing called "futuristic science fiction romance" and other of it's ilk (that I enjoy immensely) these past few years. This series isn't but Chase still manages to input that human factor of attraction without it feeling gratuitous or forced or even making it the main star of this entire show. It made me happy to read this though! Oh yes, I waited for it at the edge of my towel dammit and I feel rewarded.

Alan is growing up even more and becoming a more fully realized person. A lot of the things (which I cannot mention considering it would be major spoiler land, sorry) that happen during this book make me wonder if it's even feasible that the Created are capable of becoming full fledged independent adults. That they deserve their freedom is obvious- but what has Toren done to them and will we ever really know?

This book has its share of heartbreak also. I never feel like Chase is just yanking the heartstrings for nothing though- I never feel when I'm reading this that it's just insert-tragedy for tears component.

Sequoia is revealed in full this book- but I have to say as much as it figures as the reason why Toren wants Moira Cameron- it doesn't. I know that in this universe (the series universe) there are few planets that are capable of supporting life and those planets are rare. But..but...I just wonder a bit about some of the ideas Moira has. She thinks she can defend the planet from Toren with some guns. I repeat- Some Guns. Her loyal crew, some other people that you'll find out about this book..but huh, really? Toren seems to outweigh her in every manner resource wise. She and her crew are swift, loyal and clever, but the odds are definitively stacked against them.

The ending of this book tore me up. I'm just a total sap. It was lovely and sad.

And I'll just admit it- after I finish this hastily written thing I'm going to BUY the ARC on her website because I'm desperate to know how it all ends.
ON TO BOOK 3! RAWR!

When I finished this book, I screamed- OUT LOUD. This is why I have this shelved under "wtf-ending". My husband looked over and said "books are supposed to be private ok?" because I was apoplectic. This was last night.
So! The thing is, I love this book. The bad thing is- the ending is just a punch in the gut in that while it isn't technically a cliff hangar it just ..ends like having a movie end in the middle! Oh wait, it is like having a book end..before it is supposed to be ending.
I still love this book however.
Moira Cameron is the only survivor from her ship Bon Accord. Being the pilot she was burdened by her commander and lover to return back to Earth with information about their discovery, meanwhile her crew died so that she may do this. Obviously this information is terribly important that her entire crew would sacrifice their lives so she could make it back. Somehow- the usually minor adjustment they call "Einstein's revenge" that gives a 2 hour shift in time when exiting "web space" travel propels her 80 years in the future. Instead of NASA to report to- a huge nefarious corporation, Toren, exists and happens to be THE military contractor du jour.
Moira is essentially a fugitive from a tireless corporation that will do virtually anything to get to her. This is her story, she is sad as you can only imagine being isolated so far in the future and removed from everything she held dear, having so little real reason to live anymore but wanting to tell anyone that would can be responsible for the burden she carries.

This book is full of harrowing events, an ensemble cast of characters, touching scenes. Moira comes across as incredibly capable, very human and decent. She doesn't seem so much as an angel of Mary Sue so much as an intelligent determined woman that is struggling to survive against the Goliath.

I love, Ennis, poor poor Ennis! I love Alan, dear sweet Alan.

I am glad there is another book already available and I have already snatched it up. I looked online immediately after reading this because of the ending and felt a serious dose of relief that this is a TRILOGY.

This book actually made me cry :(. I love Moira and want to see how it all turns out!

(BTW: I'm writing this really quickly- I'm on vacation..I'll come back and edit if I have to :p )

This is my least favorite book of Smith's and I believe I have now officially read all of them.
Don't get me wrong- not only did I enjoy this but I laughed many times reading this book which is typical when I read Smith, and Mara is definitely a very interesting heroine. One thing I enjoy about reading Smith is that her characters don't just talk the talk- they walk the walk. What I mean by this is there are a lot of PNR authors that want their heroine to be all "badassy" and they sashay around in leather and can command any male within a five mile radius because of their sexiness. Mara is deadly, she's single minded and she's going to get what she plans on getting (in this case to retrieve her only beloved friend in her life from the Scholomance school) no matter WHAT IT TAKES.
I also agree with other reviewers who think that Mara is a sociopath. At the very least her character has strong sociopathic tendencies. I guess it doesn't disgust me because after a lifetime of strong innate telepathy from birth what kind of person do you think that produces? I feel her attitude in life is befitting her circumstances and frankly sometimes it's a relief to read a character that isn't necessarily going to save every kitten crossing the road. Mara is entertaining! She is cold, she is petty, selfish. Her one memory of ever appearing a beautifully genuinely good person is the memory of her best friend's thoughts. Her girlhood BFF had one shining thought of what Mara appears to her and Mara has held on to that moment her entire life. It is the memory she breaks out any moment she feels herself a heartless monster- she examines this memory and comforts herself, yes I do have a heart.
My main issue with this book is that it does tend to drag on. Once Mara arrives at the Scholomance we get to the point somewhere in her lessons there where we have to ask..umm the search, lets get this search going on. Pretty Please.
None of the books Smith has written are suitable for the feint of heart and this book is definitely hard core in terms of violence, sexual assault, gore, horror, violence, and just plain human ugliness. In fact, Smith is so good at going no holds barred regarding the petty trashiness of a human soul it makes me wonder about her! (I'm just kidding!)
So despite the fact that it's my least favorite- it's a good book. It just had moments during which I wondered how long is this going to last which is unusual for me when reading Smith. Usually when I pick up a book of hers I read it nonstop and cannot put it down and lose sleep. This took me about a week to read. I had a better review written in my head, but: Skyrim. :p

The first couple of chapters of this book are rough to get through. I think I picked this book up drowsily (very late at night, I'm an insomniac) scanning descriptions on Amazon..saw the word Cyborg and clicked Hell Yes. I have a thing for cyborgs you see..and AI.

Moving on- I then needed some motivation so I looked up the description again and it gave me steam. I hadn't reached the part where the mystery human woman appears! The first chapter or so were just boring to me so I kept on going because I wanted to see what happened when Human Woman appeared.

Nell Stafford arrives inexplicably on the spaceship that Beijing York leads (he's the Sy-En fleet Admiral actually) and is discovered during a critical moment. The Sy-En ships are converging upon a wormhole- it is their mission to travel through and prepare a planet for human survival. Approaching this wormhole they find out quickly there is no conceivable way to travel through and they have been betrayed by the humans back on Earth. In this whirlwind of events, ships sacrificing themselves, a partial mutiny, Nell is awakened and thrust into play. As she is fully human she outranks all of the Sy-En and they are wary of her. She is clueless, yet she manages with intuition that she cannot understand to forge a trust between herself and Beijing and his crew.

The main issues I had with the book were the Star Trek, I don't know, bridge procedural? So if you like that a lot this won't be an issue with you. It just got to be a bit much at times. There is a heavy element of romance in this book and I'm happy and comfortable with that- I just felt that they hooked up far too fast given the circumstances. I enjoyed that the mystery of Nell Stafford was answered in a relatively believable science fiction manner- I was wondering if she was just going to be written off as just a magical appearance and in that way you are not left wondering. So points for that!

The ending felt a bit rushed and pat, but I DID love one of the last scenes between Nell and Beijing a lot. There is another a book 2 in this series but I won't be reading it. I am not skipping it because I didn't enjoy this but I just don't think I'll like the premise of book 2 as much as this one.

I would suggest this for those that read sci fi romance oriented books regularly- not hard core science fiction fans. I wouldn't suggest this for the standard romance reader because I think all of the world building will annoy you if you're not familiar and comfortable with a science fiction paradigm.

In conclusion: I definitely enjoyed this despite the hiccups and rushed seeming ending.

So, you read a lot of Pearl Buck and got burned out? Then read this. It has duty, rank, AND magic. This book did make me cry once, never made me laugh and yet I still wanted to slap some sense into Eon about a million times. It isn't that she's TSTL- it's just that her main problem is hitting her over the head like a 2x4 and I feel like I'm the princess in the NeverEnding story watching Bastian reading the book with disbelief....JUST DO IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

This is the ONE thing that made me irritated while reading the book- otherwise it was great. I read it in almost one sitting (meaning I was able to finish it the bulk of it one insomniac night..last night).

Anyway- I can see why some people won't be reading Book 2 but I've already started it. I want to see how this all ends.

If you prefer more plot with your erotica go elsewhere. If you have secret fantasies of Gulliver's Travels and want to indulge, do purchase and revel in it. If you want strange stories of young virgins being ravished by Fae royalty and threesomes and you don't want a lot of plot this book is for you!

OK so this book was just "ok". I had issues with the writing/pacing. Firstly I disliked the names- which shouldn't be a deal breaker for a book really but they just irked the hell out of me. Bunny, Tabby, Cyn, and Glory are the worst offenders for me name wise. But hey, to each their own, perhaps you'll read this and love the names and it won't dig under your skin like it did me. More power to you.
Tabby is an outcast wolf shifter who craves real asylum, comfort and home. She lives in a small community and has integrated smoothly with the Puma shifter clan well enough and they have accepted her. Bunny is a grizzly shifter who happens to ride into town with his cousin (IIRC) on his Harley and just feels the urge to explore and ends up catching a whiff of his mate, Tabby, in the local tattoo shop. After that initial meeting some violence happens, whodunnit occurs, many less than stellar conversations and just blech. Sex happens yeah, it's mildly amusing.

So I didn't really like it. I'll read the next one just because I have it. If the first few chapters bothered me like this book I will just quit and move on :.

3.5 stars "I really liked it".

This is short and it's the fourth of Destiny series. I've read all of them. Nothing original but this is basic PNR + HEA formula. That is faint praise, but look, it's not trying to fool you into thinking this is something MORE it's a good little story and series.

Geo looks as if he is a demon with his horns but in fact he's an exiled member from the God Realm. He has been banished to the Underworld realm (akin to Purgatory I guess) for punishment. He sees a beautiful red headed fiery witch battling three gigantic Werewolves in the Underworld and decides to interfere because he needs this witch to enter a plea for him to the Goddess Gaia (the patron Goddess of Witches). Samantha is vulnerable but fierce, searching for her baby sister in the Underworld.

This is a nice series if you want to get another PNR that has definite HEA's, and fun characters. It's a bit short and the love develops over the course of a week or more. I have enjoyed all of the characters thus far and will continue to read any upcoming ones.

This is the best book I've read all year and my favorite this year. I will write my review in full once I TRY to process why I liked this so much and try to be a coherent human being.