Abaddon Rising (Deg’Nara series) by P.L. Parker – Review

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4 stars, aliens, gladiators, intergalactic war, P.L. Parker, romance, scifi, scifi adventure, series

About Abaddon Rising by P.L. Parker

One of a million statistics in the intergalactic war, Jocelyn St. Germaine is captured, sold as a slave and then forced to fight in the Deg’Nara gladiator games.  She’s slated to lose when Kanaan, the most feared warrior of all, claims her as his own. With his help, Joss’s chances of survival increase, but is it enough?

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Review of Abaddon Rising

The Deg’Nara series takes place in a part of the galaxy where there is a really nasty alien race, the Deg’Nara, that wants to enslave or obliterate all other races and worlds out there. Why? There is not a lot of reasoning given, except, like I said, they are really nasty.

The good guys are either slaves of the Deg’Nara or part of the onging fight against them. Or both. This common background is ripe for drama and action and romance.

Abaddon Rising focuses on two gladiator-like slaves of the Deg’Nara. Joss is a human woman who was ‘accidentally’ kidnapped by the Chiagan-Se and brought to this part of the galaxy (See The Chalice). The battles between the Chiagan-Se and the Deg’Nara resulted in Joss being captured and made a slave.

Kanaan is the local boy. Part Chiagan-Se and part Mogishada he was raised in the slave system, but his mother taught him everything he needed to know in order to not just survive, but to come out on top. Indeed, at the beginning of the book Kanaan is the ‘demon warrior of the slave pits’, also known as The Destroyer.

In the slave quarters Kanaan claims Joss to protect her, but it will soon become something more.

The relationship between Joss and Kanaan is a bit off again, on again, depending on the last conversation they had. It is not an easy alliance but as the reader, I knew they were meant to be together. However, neither of them is an ace communicator, so it takes awhile for them to confess their love. Which is how it should be. 🙂

Joss and Kanaan will go through much before the end of the book. Arena battles, training, a tournament, escape attempt, family re-union and ultimately, the chance to join in the great, far-reaching battle against the Deg’Nara. The story is nearly epic and the romance keeps the pace. I truly enjoyed every page of Abaddon Rising.

I feel like I should clarify the Deg’Nara series, which started with The Chalice, originally published in 2012. Breeder Slave came next, in 2017, but it does not seem to be billed as part of the series (according to Amazon or Goodreads). Finally, Abaddon Rising came out this year and it is designated Deg’Nara #2. It is a little confusing, but to clarify:

Breeder Slave really is part of the Deg’Nara series. It takes place during the same time period as Abaddon Rising but has mostly different characters and locations. There is a slight overlap. Read them in any order. Both fit in nicely with the Deg’Nara series.

The author provided a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Giveaway

Don’t forget the ongoing giveaway for the audiobook of Phantom Evil by Heather Graham, or the print books of Catherine Cerveny’s The Rule of Luck and The Chaos of Luck.  If you haven’t entered yet, you might be interested to know that commenting on today’s post helps qualify you for an entry – see the giveaway post for all the details.  Or go straight to the giveaway….

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Alien Contact for Runaway Moms (Alien Contact for Idiots, #5) by Edward Hoornaert – Review

Tags

5 stars, aliens, Book Review, Edward Hoornaert, scifi romance, series

Review by KJ Van Houten

Review of Alien Contact for Runaway Moms

Audra Verhailey is good at running – that’s a really good skill to have when she needs to get away from an abusive boyfriend, but how is she going to manage it with an 8-month-old baby in tow? For a start, by going to the last place on Earth anyone would think of going. So Audra runs to the abandoned underground cities on Kwadra Island, home to the all-too-intriguing Kwadrans, aliens who had appeared suddenly four years ago when they mysteriously moved their island home to our world. No human in her right mind would go there, right?

Somehow on the way, Audra picks up a volunteer guide in the form of Tal Pelletier, Kwadran construction worker, who finds Audra and baby Roxie right after they reach Kwadra Island. He agrees to lead her to the underground, as much to his own surprise as to hers since it’s the last place he wants to go, too. Underground holds too many memories and he really doesn’t want to confront his painful past. But there’s something about the way baby Roxie smiles and gurgles up at him that he can’t resist. Yeah, it’s got to be the baby. It definitely isn’t the way his body reacts when he looks at Audra. Nope, not the annoying female who is obviously hiding a secret and running from who knows what kind of trouble.

Nearly a month after Audra’s disappearance, her uncle Matthew, an expert in cyber security, arrives on Kwadra Island. His search for his missing niece has led him this far, but now her trail is cold. Opsie Beaverclaw, duchess of the Beaver Clan, agrees to help him search the Island for her. It’s just because she’s bored after resigning as head of the Kwadran security force. OK, so maybe it’s his determined attitude to find and protect his niece that appeals to the scarred woman in her. Maybe it’s just those appealing blue eyes.

Audra finds more underground than she expected. It’s not as abandoned as she thought it would be, and there are more dangers than just getting lost on unfamiliar streets. Good thing Tal is there to guide and protect her, even if she doesn’t understand why he just walked away from his job on the surface and has stayed with her this long. Or is the biggest danger Tal himself. But now there’s evidence that someone is after them, or at least her. Is it her ex coming to steal Roxie from her? Audra has to learn to trust more than just herself.

Alien Contact for Runaway Moms provides two romances for the price of one! While the main story centers around Audra and Tal, I was just an happy to read about the relationship developing between Opsie and Matthew. Maybe because Opsie is portrayed in a different light than in previous books in this series. I really didn’t like her character before, but in this book, she steals the scenes with her strength and attitude.

I usually avoid romances that have ‘baby’ anywhere in the blurb, but I enjoyed the other books in this series so much that I was happy to give this one a try and I’m glad I did. I really need to find a better way to describe this series than ‘quirky’ or ‘a fun romp’ – those are exactly the right words, I just have been overusing them. Hoornaert’s balance of humour and serious story is delightful to read. I never recommend any of these books as standalone, although some people might be okay with that. I prefer to read the series in order to get the backstory that can’t be explained in each new book, the growing depth of characters and how they interconnect. In this book, I think not knowing more about the Kwadran society and Opsie’s background particularly, a reader might miss some of those connections.

Disclaimer: An ebook of Alien Contact for Runaway Moms was provided in exchange for an honest review.

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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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