The Seven-Foot Cupid (Passion Island Trilogy, #1) by Edward Hoornaert – Review

Tags

4 stars, Book Review, colonization, Edward Hoornaert, romance, scifi, scifi romance, series

Review by KJ Van Houten

About The Seven-Foot Cupid by Edward Hoornaert

Ember Dayle prides herself on handling anything her newly colonized planet can throw at her. After an injury, she’s determined to prove herself again. She gets her chance when ordered to explore a mysterious cave on a wilderness mountain. Until that’s done, the last thing she needs is the distraction of a man.

Tyler, an explorer from her town’s fierce rival, is sent to explore the same cave. Like Ember, he’s been in an accident…but he was the only survivor. When he meets Ember, he’s drawn not only to her beauty and toughness, but by her ability to deal openly with her accident.

Booker is a naïve Apprentice Cupid for a secret group hoping to make the colonists healthier, and smarter by helping people with strong genes fall in love. His first assignment: Ember and Tyler. His strategy: lock them in an abandoned cabin together. With nothing else to pass the time, maybe they’ll find love.

He doesn’t realize he’s locked them in with the fiercest, most intelligent native beast ever discovered. Can love help them survive?

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Review of The Seven-Foot Cupid

One-word summary: Cute. Sweet. Refreshing. (Okay, that’s 3 one-word summaries.)

Multi-word summary: What do you get when you have a cupid-in-training and 2 discouraged souls? Add in that Cupid is not the cute little angelic immortal we all know and love, but a genetically-perfect human agent of a secret agency with the goal of matchmaking for the purpose of encouraging human population growth on a recently-colonized planet.

Then you have two encroachment agents from competing settlements – that is, ranger-like agents whose job it is to investigate flora and fauna to save such lifeforms from human interference – or rather to ensure various locales are safe for human expansion.

Ember and Tyler are from settlements that are ongoing rivals in pretty much every category. Both humans are encroachment agents, each with a past that has left them uncertain of their abilities to perform their jobs well, each with something to prove.

Booker is a cupid-in-training tasked with getting Ember and Tyler to break the division among townships, realize that they are genetically compatible, and hopefully fall in love. Booker is young, fresh out of training, this is his first assignment, and, when nothing goes quite the way he expects it to, quickly learns that he just might be in over his head here. And that says a lot when he’s 7-foot tall, much larger and intimidating than everyone around him.

Bottomline: I enjoyed this one. It was light, makes a great break from reading action-heavy or drama-heavy like my last few reads. I feel bubbly inside after reading this one. Only a bit annoyed that there is 1) the concept of perfect genes (How is that defined, why would any gene be better than another?) – even if the story shows perfect genes doesn’t mean perfect is really perfect; 2) an implication that motherhood (and parenthood in general) is the ultimate goal (isn’t it enough to just fall in love without needing subsequent marriage and children?); and 3) Several typos throughout, could have used another round of editing or another pair of eyes on it. But really, those concerns are afterthoughts. The story is fun, promising a lot of potential to be explored in this new world along with a fun secret agency to perhaps be exposed. It is not as campy as the Alien Contact for Idiots series (which is fun and I highly recommend), but lighter than the Repelling the Invasion series (which I LOVE, it’s one of my favourites in the SFR genre). Definitely looking forward to more.

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Love Thy Galactic Enemy (Repelling the Invasion, #4) by Edward Hoornaert – Review

Tags

5 stars, Book Review, Edward Hoornaert, romance, scifi, scifi romance, series, space opera

About Love The Galactic Enemy by Edward Hoornaert

Abandoned to the enemy’s tender mercy . . . Minta Streave, the naive secretary for a spy team that spread a man-made plague, leaves the planet too late — the team abandons her on the enemy’s space station. She’s forced to fend for herself until she can make contact with an elusive spy, Watcher, who can take her home. To avoid arrest, she nurses a plague victim — a gentle, whimsical man who spouts Lewis Carroll. But to know this enemy is to love him . . .When Finn Shanwing falls ill, he doesn’t intend to hide that he’s a high-ranking commando. Neither does he intend to fall in love with the secretive nurse who saves his life . . . but by the time he reveals to Minta she saved an enemy officer, it’s too late for his heart. Or hers. Also too late to escape the wrath of Watcher — half-human, half-machine, and both halves obsessed with her.

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Review of Love The Galactic Enemy

Love Thy Galactic Enemy was just what I was looking for when I needed a light refreshing read. A little conflict, a little humor, some cute animals all bundled up with an enemies to lovers romance.

But are you really enemies if one of you doesn’t know you are enemies? Hmm. Minta and Finn come from opposite sides of the battle so I guess that makes them foes. But Finn doesn’t know that about Minta, so he is able to look at her with an unbiased eye. And he likes what he sees. Minta likes what she sees too. However, there is always that issue with being in enemy territory that keeps her from committing to anything. She wants out of there!

So, okay enemies. In addition, neither is what they appear to be. Finn is a supersoldier. Minta knows enemy secrets, including the fact that Finn is sick because of a Proxie manufactured virus. Enemies and secrets should be a lethal combination.

Farflung Station is one of my favorite Scifi settings. I’m not sure why – I think I just like space stations. Plus it is a familiar setting. Readers of Hoornaert’s Repelling the Invasion series will reacquaint themselves with Security Chief Duke (Dukelsky) and Assistant Station Manager Sandrina, Duke’s wife. They are a lovely couple who almost always know what to do and what to say to refugees and warriors.

Also of note are mizzets and whispets. Are they pets, alien ambassadors or friends? The thing is, these non-human creatures can always identify the good-hearted people. Or the evil maniacs. I always like that about animals in fiction.

While we are talking about evil maniacs, I have to mention the Watcher. This Proxie agent is creepy. Not just a little creepy. Entirely creepy. Even when he is being human. He wants Minta for himself and, for some reason, thinks she will fall into his arms. And if she won’t, he will make her. Super creepy. By the way, the animals don’t like him.

For Minta and Finn, there is plenty of danger to bring them closer or tear them apart, the mark of a great Scifi Romance. I love the added humor, the mizzets and whispets and the familiar characters too. 5 stars for Love Thy Galactic Enemy.

Thanks to the author who provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Constellation XXI (Repelling the Invasion, #3) by Edward Hoornaert – Review

Tags

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

Review by K.J. VanHouten.

About Constellation XXI by Edward Hoornaert

Rediscovering love at the worst possible time

Although Sienna Dukelsky had been the most promising student pilot at Keening AstroSpace Academy, she inexplicably settles for a routine, unglamorous job guiding incoming spaceships to safe berths at Farflung Space Station. Rumors, never verified, blamed her surprising decision on a boyfriend who got expelled from Keening.

Crispin Hunt, fleeing enemy forces, is greeted by a tugship captained by Sienna, his former girlfriend. Love rekindles—until an old betrayal boils up. Her ship loses power while aimed dead on at the space station, forcing Sienna to confront the terrifying truth about Crispin and his cargo…and her routine job suddenly becomes the most important in the entire galaxy.

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Review of Constellation XXI

First, I must apologize for this review being so long in coming! That was no reflection on the author. OK, actually, maybe it is. I first started reading Constellation XXI and got distracted by names that were familiar – that’s when I realized this is book 3 of the Repelling the Invasion series. That reminded me that the first book in the series, The Guardian Angel of Farflung Station, is one of my favourite SFR stories! Which meant I was then so eager to reread it that I couldn’t get into the new story until I did. Which also meant that I then went on to read book 2, Escapee, which was another great story. So I FINALLY came back to Constellation XXI when I found my way out of that rabbit-hole. (Which was a fun and much recommended rabbit-hole to fall into to be sure!)

Constellation XXI returns us to the Dukelsky family – this time with Sienna, cousin to Duke, whom we met in book 1. Sienna is eager to prove herself, having recently completed a academy training and tugship apprenticeship. She finally gets a chance for a solo captaincy – even if she is the only crew on a new Thought Ship, which operates in response to brainwaves rather than manual controls. Her assignment is to monitor the emptiest section of space around Farflung Station, an important responsibility to monitor for errant ships and keep collisions from affecting the station by docking incoming ships with the station properly. Not to mention monitoring for any incoming ships from Proxima, home to a cruel race of people at war with the rest of the galaxy.

If only she could stop falling into daydreams about Crispin Hunt, a former lover that she hasn’t seen in years, but suddenly comes into renewed contact with. Literally, it turns out as he appears at the helm of a freighter coming in from the Black, as the sparsely populated borderlands area was known. Crispin is captain of the Constellation XXI, coming in with a cargo of exotic animals for sale. Sienna isn’t sure if she wants to welcome him or blast him from space. The only thing she is sure of is that she doesn’t really want him in her life right now, and she’s pretty sure that feeling is mutual.

The story sounds simple and harmless enough – meeting up with an old lover, rekindle an old attraction that never quite went away, and a coming-into-her-own story of a rookie making a place for herself in a competitive job environment. Simple enough that is until you throw in a group of marines eager for a fight and with no respect for a rookie tugship captain, old misunderstandings and misdeeds, and ultimately, a ship-wide power loss that puts two ships on a deadly collision course with Farflung Station itself. And somehow, it’s tied to the mysterious cargo that Crispin is bringing in from beyond the border planets – and which he isn’t being entirely truthful about. Secrets that threaten far more than just a collision with the station, but rather a collision with perceptions that may change the way of life and war for the galaxy.

Yes, Constellation XXI works perfectly fine as a standalone read, but I recommend reading any series in order. There always seems to be background data flotsam that makes the environment of the story richer and ties characters into a larger universe. As I said before, this series is a fun one to fall into. Ed Hooenart has a talent for bringing out the humour and humanity of his characters. Repelling the Invasion is probably my favourite of his series, and Constellation XXI just proves that his stories just keep getting better. Highly recommend reading this one!

Disclaimer: An ebook of Constellation XXI was provided in exchange for an honest review.

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