Lost Valyr (Project Enterprise #7) by Pauline Baird Jones – Review

Tags

5 stars, aliens, favorite series, humor, parrot, Pauline Baird Jones, scifi, scifi romance, series, space exploration

About Lost Valyr

She’s a scientist in the wrong galaxy. He’s an alien in the wrong century. Can their love reset a terrifying future?

Dr. Rachel Grant knows her way around the Garradian tech on the Kikk Outpost. But the technology she encounters in an alien medical lab stumps even her brilliant mind. With a little help from her scheming parrot sidekick, she manages to push the right buttons and transport them to an uncharted planet…where they find a recently defrosted alien, who heats up Rachel.

Valyr wasn’t going to warm up to the bright-eyed scientist anytime soon…not after she pried centuries of cryosleep from his cold fingers. But waking up in the wrong century is nothing compared to the robots targeting his still-frozen team. And their situation only gets worse when he discovers the spiderweb of destruction trailing in the robots’ wake. With their backs against the wall, Valyr is blown away by Rachel’s determined passion in the face of impossible odds… but they’ll need more than a chemical reaction to survive what is headed their way.

Lost Valyr is the seventh standalone book in the explosive Project Enterprise sci-fi romance series. If you like heart-pounding chemistry, ragtag bands of misfits, and action-packed space battles, then you’ll love Pauline Baird Jones’ rollicking romance.

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Review of Lost Valyr

I always enjoy meeting up with old friends from previous Project Enterprise encounters. Colonel Braedon Carey, Helfron Giddioni, Doc Clementine, Robert Clementine, Emily, and of course, Sir Rupert. Of them all, Doc was the very first Project Enterprise heroine that I met (yes, I read the books out of order), so she is an old friend. I can’t quite see why Rachel finds her so daunting but she does.

Almost immediately, Rachel gets herself into a situation that she is pretty sure Doc and the other brass are not going to be please about. The sitrep – transported off planet, by alien technology, to a medical lab containing a recently awakened-from-cryosleep man named Valyr. Sentient, talking parrot Sir Rupert is Rachel’s work companion and he has made the trip with her.

The transport, by all appearances, was merely an elevator. Alien technology. You gotta love it. I like how all these humans are trying to maintain a presence in a galaxy furnished with all the cool gadgets they don’t understand and, many of which are still being discovered (i.e. they have a lot of nerve). Wouldn’t that be a dream job though! What else are they going to find?

Sir Rupert, who was interesting in Time Trap, gets even more intriguing in Lost Valyr. His talents and goals are slowly revealed. In fact, he is the one that got the elevator to ‘work’. With a co-worker like Sir Rupert, things are going to get interesting. He also has a delightful sense of humor.

Next up are the robots. Are they good or bad? They attack outposts, looking for something and at the same time are pursued by Zaddek (more on Zaddek in a sec). And despite the robotness of their actions, some of their thoughts are a bit human-tinged. Some, not all. So what is their purpose? And where do they fall on the good-to-bad scale? I enjoyed this group of robots as characters and as major plot enhancers. But beware, they are on their way to the outpost where Rachel, Rupert and Valyr are hanging out.

If you don’t want to wonder if a character is good or bad, lets talk about Zaddek. So, a spider as a bad guy. Personally, I like spiders in my garden.  But up close, they are creepy looking.  No two ways about it, Zaddek is really bad! He has been known eat his own crew members. That has got to hamper his overall effectiveness as a captain. What if he eats the very person that can save the ship. Who would volunteer to crew for such a captain? No one. Can you say ‘shanghai’? But there is at least one crew member that is doing what she can to get the hell off the ship and in doing so, Savlf may do more than save herself. Zaddek and Savlf have a very unhealthy relationship. The trouble is Zaddek, like so many successful evil geniuses, is arrogant. Now, we all know that arrogance in the criminal mastermind is a fatal flaw. Zaddek’s arrogance prevents him from realizing just how unhealthy the relationship with Savlf is (mwah, ha, ha). I have to say, Zaddek is so evil, that knowing his weakness from the beginning, gave me hope for all the good guys.

Lets talk about the romance in the the room – Rachel and Valyr. Valyr doesn’t talk much. Rachel seems to make up for it. Though much of conversation is internal, they still seem to communicate well. Rachel thinks that because she is low ranking she won’t get to keep her ‘alien’ like Doc and others that were allowed to keep their odd and alien matchups. Does Valyr want to keep her? He has some unexplained mission, and might have other things to do.

By the end of the book, Rachel and Valyr do seem to have become a couple.  However, Valyr’s presence and purpose are not clearly defined. Readers of the series may link him with events that took place in a different part of the galaxy. Lost Valyr, more than most books in the series, hints at previous stories. Now, I am not saying you have to read the other stories. Lost Valyr is a fine story all on it’s own. If you have read the rest of the series, you will appreciate this one all that much more.

There is so much going on in Lost Valyr. Amazon says there are 337 pages. You need all those pages to cover all this ground. There is romance, aliens, cryosleep, the US Military in Garradian space, old friends from earlier books in the series, the Gadi, robots, Zaddek and his crew, and lest I forget to mention, there is Bangle, the helpful AI of the central outpost. Plus, Ms. Jones’ delightful brand of quirky humor enhances the overall reading experience. Read Lost Valyr. You will not be bored. However, you may be in danger of losing sleep.

The author provided a copy of her book so I could bring you my honest review.

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Alien Captured (Zyrgin Warriors #5) by Marie Dry – Review

Tags

5 stars, alien invasion, aliens, humor, Marie Dry, scifi, scifi romance, series, time travel

About Alien Captured

In a bleak future, where government systems are breaking down and poverty and violence reign, on an abandoned farm in Montana, Susannah had a simple plan. She’d capture an alien, sell him to the resistance, and use the money to save her son.

Instead, Susannah had an arrogant alien trapped in a pit who acted as if she was the prisoner. He wanted to kill her dog and insisted she should care for the wound he sustained when he fell into the pit she dug to trap him. On top of that, she had no way to know if the resistance got her message. Every day that passed, she doubted her decision to hand Azagor over to the resistance.

But her son, her baby, was being held by people who considered him unclean because he was conceived out of wedlock—and time was running out.

Review of Alien Captured

I can’t review this book without giving some consideration to the heroine, Susannah. Some might look on Susannah as a weak character. Indeed, in modern contemporary society, she would be considered not only weak, but also backward. But the author provides a thorough background on Susannah, who is very much a product of her upbringing. In this case, I think nature and nurture had it in for her and the other females in her cult. Susannah is a member of a cult that is ruled a man (Brother Josephatus) who fancies himself to be the right hand of God. The women do all the work and have no rights. The women were raised this way and accept the status quo even if they do not like it.

But the cult has abandoned Susannah because they (Brother Joseph) believe she is no good. First, she had a child out of wedlock. In addition to that, she claims to have seen a demon.

Well, that demon was actually the Zyrgin warrior, Azagor. I’m sure anyone could make that mistake. They are green-skinned, red-eyed and have a forehead ridge that could be a horn.

Left on her own, and desperate to get her son Noah back, Susannah’s strengths spring to life. First she conceived the Alien Captured plan. Now that is a title I would not have expected to see in the Zyrgin Warrior series – Alien Captured? The highly trained, arrogant ‘I-am-a-Zyrgin-Warrior‘ type should never have allowed himself to be captured.

And yet, it happened. It would be spoilerish to say much more about the warrior’s capture. But if you think Azagor will stay captive for very long….well, he is a Zyrgin Warrior!

The captive situation puts Azagor just where he wants to be, in the company of Susannah. As you can see, the warrior has some preconceived ideas of what should be happening:

Instead of harboring fantasies of contacting the resistance, she should want to tend to his wound. Sponge down his body and be so impressed with his superior warrior’s physique that she would want to be his breeder.

Susannah treats him as a dangerous enemy to be used. He treats her as a captor to convince to become is breeder. Breeder is the Zrygin word for mate. Azagor (and most of his fellow warriors) don’t have any clue that human women are not all all keen on that word. Misunderstanding ensues, followed by humor.

The lack of understanding about each other and their cultures makes for a lot of misunderstanding. Some is not very funny, but some is quite humorous. What is really funny is what Azagor thinks he knows because of what other human women have told him and the human movies he has watched. I think the cultural differences that create such wonderful interactions are my favorite parts of the Zrygin warrior stories.

But this one also has one more thing that always to appeals to me. A dog. Killer is a Teacup Yorkie – the last of it’s kind. He is a tiny little dog with a huge heart. He takes on the mean green alien without backing down. I can’t help but love this little Killer, even if Azagor thinks it looks like a rat and doesn’t like him:

She was about to grab Killer and run when Azagor stopped as abruptly as he’d started. “He is small and weak. You should kill him. I will get you a better pet.” He absently scratched at his wound, and she swallowed. Didn’t he feel any pain? “The Aurelians have pets.” He said it as if having a pet was the strangest thing to do. “They are called battle leopards. It will protect you.” His lips pulled into what she supposed was his attempt at a smile. If he ever wanted to scare anyone to death, all he had to do was smile. “We’ll make the rat the first snack for your new pet.”

There is more to that rat story, but I won’t say more.

There is also a child, but in this case, he is too young to talk, and therefore does not have that ‘cute kid’ appeal. Susannah’s baby, Noah, was taken from her as soon as he was born. He doesn’t appear until late in the story, but his appearance makes for a heart-wrenching scene. And while the baby does not qualify for cute kid status, the Zrygin warriors reactions to Noah are quite endearing.

There are some interesting, quieter side stories. One about the project of building something in space. Also there is talk of a previous time travel project. I am not sure if I would know more if I had read the first three books in the series? But I would like to know more.  Perhaps there will be additional details in book 6.

I really enjoy the alien/human relations in this series. In Alien Captured, the cultural clashes and misunderstandings make for the best rocky start to what will turn into a very cool romance between the determined heroine and the even more determined hero. If you have enjoyed other books in the series, you will like this one. If you are new to the series, go easy on Azagor, until he wises up. You’ll like him!

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review.

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Not Fade Away (Interstellar Rescue Series #4) by Donna S. Frelick

Tags

5 stars, aliens, Donna S. Frelick, favorite series, flashback, little gray aliens, scifi, scifi romance, series

About Not Fade Away

Earth shielded his secrets–
Until her love unlocked his heart.

Rescue agent Rafe Gordon is human, though Earth has never been his home. But when his legendary father Del becomes the target of alien assassins, Rafe must hide the dementia-debilitated hero in the small mountain town where the old man was born—Masey, North Carolina, USA, Earth.

Home care nurse Charlie McIntyre and her therapy dog, Happy, have never had such challenging clients before. Del’s otherworldly “episodes” are not explained by his diagnosis, making Charlie question everything about her mysterious charge and his dangerously attractive son. Rafe has the answers she needs, but Charlie will have to break through his wall of secrets to get them.

As the heat rises between Charlie and Rafe, the deadly alien hunters circle closer. The light they seek to extinguish flickers in the gloom of Del’s fading mind—the memory of a planet-killer that threatens to enslave the galaxy.

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Review of Not Fade Away

The Interstellar Rescue Series is a favorite of mine. Each story not only stands alone, but is unique in plot and style which enables me to enjoy each one without knowing where the story line is going before I even start. There are characters in Not Fade Away from other books, so I had the advantage of having already met them, but you don’t have to read the previous books to appreciate this new one.

Rafe, the hero of Not Fade Away is human, but has never been to Earth until now. This makes for some uncomfortable situations for Rafe. You see, Rafe did not do his homework before coming to Earth and now he is at a loss to understand much of the culture in the U.S. including things like pizza and dating. It falls to Charlie to explain such things to the ‘Canadian’, making for many humorous situations.

Maybe the humor made the romance develop faster than I realized. In other words, one minute Charlie and Rafe were secretly admiring each other, and the next they were having secret serious commitment thoughts about each other. It is not that I minded. It is just that I felt I missed something in the romance. In the end, Charlie and Rafe make a great couple to cheer for. Charlie puts up with Rafe’s idiosyncrasies and Rafe admires Charlie’s strength.

Of course, I may have missed out on some of the romance because I was caught up in the rest of the story. I really liked how Del’s story is told through flashbacks to his time as a slave toiling away at a big project the Grays were attempting to engineer. The flashbacks added really important details to the story, filling in Del’s history, explaining his present state of mind and setting up the present day challenge. To put it simply, Del’s flashbacks tell the story of the birth of the big bad AI. Hence, the present day challenge.

Not only is there an alien AI, but there is a not so huge, but really nasty, psychotic bad guy (Zouk) that is on the hunt for Del. At the beginning, he has absolutely no idea where Del is, but his intelligence and total lack of morals gets him the info that he believes will allow him to track his prey. Zouk is the kind of villain I love to hate. But he is a really ‘good’ bad guy!

I can’t talk about this story with mentioning Happy. Yes, I was happy to read the book but I am talking about a dog named Happy. This loving pup worms his way into everybody’s heart. Well, maybe not everybody, but at least the important people. Happy is just one more reason to read this book!

Not Fade Away has a flashbacks, being hunted, hunting, good aliens, bad aliens, rescue, romance, Earthlings, homecoming to Earth, and pizza. The constant action overlays the understated, but crucial romance between the heroine and hero. When you read Not Fade Away, look for alien history, thrills, lovin’ and an epic showdown between a really villainous alien and the good guys. Not Fade Away is highly recommended!

I received a copy of this book from the author so that I could bring you this honest review.

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