The Queen’s Advantage (Rogue Queen, #2) by Jessie Mihalik – Review

Tags

5 stars, Book Review, Jessie Mihalik, mystery, scifi, scifi romance

About The Queen’s Advantage by Jessie Mihalik

When Queen Samara Rani fulfills the promise she made to Emperor Valentin Kos to visit his court and meet with his advisors, she knows they won’t welcome her with open arms, especially when she’s been tasked with discovering the traitors within their ranks—traitors she tricked out of five million credits.

As soon as Samara begins her investigation it becomes clear that Valentin’s advisors want her gone and they aren’t picky about how. After their tactics turn violent, Samara and Valentin race to unravel the web of treachery and lies before the next attack ends in tragedy.

When the conflict escalates in ferocity and rumors start blaming Samara, she is forced to continue her hunt alone. Uncovering traitors is difficult when courtiers learn to lie before they learn to walk, and one misstep could cost her life. However, Rogue Queens aren’t easy to kill and Samara has more than a few tricks of her own.

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Review of The Queen’s Advantage

The Queen’s Advantage is as much mystery as it is SciFi. There is espionage and betrayal afoot and it is Samara’s job to figure out the culprit(s). There are so many suspects. And solving the mystery is critical. You see, whoever is at the bottom of the mystery is trying to get rid of Emperor Valentin, who also happens to be Samara’s romantic interest. I loved the action, the constant threats to both Samara and Valentin and the plot twists as the guilty party is slowly unveiled. I also liked how the romance is secondary to the plot of uncovering the traitor.

Samara and Valentin met in book 1, The Queen’s Gambit (my review here). While that story set up the circumstances for The Queen’s Advantage, you can read both as standalones. I like this series better than the author’s popular Polaris Rising. Readers of SciFi Romance will enjoy Jessie Mihalik’s Rogue Queen series. Shorter novels, they contain a perfect blend of romance and intra-galaxy action.

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Well, Not Steal Exactly… by Vivien Jackson – Guest Post

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artificial intelligence, guest post, romance, scifi, scifi romance, series, Vivien Jackson

Today is release day for More Than Stardust.  Congratuations to Vivien Jackson on her new book!  If you missed my review of this great new book, you can find it here.

Today I am please to welcome Ms. Jackson to Whiskey With My Book.  She has decided to confess…

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Guest Post
by Vivien Jackson

Writers don’t just make up stories out of a vacuum. We steal tons of stuff… well, not steal exactly, not like plagiarism because that is BAD AND DON’T DO IT, but more in the way of references to previous work we have found meaningful and influential. For instance, I’m not sure if you it’s possible to write a book about a manufactured post-human – be it cyborg or android or techno-zombie – without having bits of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein pinging around in your brain. That book certainly took up residence in my mind when I was writing More Than Stardust, a science fiction romance about a self-aware nanorobotic artificial intelligence who dreams of having a body and being a real girl. At one point my characters even reference Frankenstein because that book is so deeply hooked into concepts of manufactured persons. I mean, of course characters in such a situation would think about it.

They don’t overtly reference Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, but I echoed a line of hers in a scene where characters are hiking over a glacier. Points to anybody who finds that line.

I also reference, more obliquely, Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human. Like that classic science fiction novel, my book is about post-humans, the “what comes after us” what-of of personhood. Which is where I got the title More Than Stardust from.

There are also homage-type references to all my fandoms, too: Doctor Who and The X-Files and J. R. R. Tolkien and 1980s hair band metal… stuff like that. I wouldn’t be a deep-rooted fangirl if I didn’t throw in those things. When I’m reading a book, I look for the connections between the author and me, things that we might have in common, as evidenced in what the characters say and do. Those things make a character relatable. If the character is only interested in things that I don’t know very well or don’t care to know particularly, I might skip pages. That’s not to say I haven’t read books where I learned something new – those are super fun! – but it’s comfy, to me, to find bits of things I love inside the books I read.

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About More Than Stardust

She never wanted to be a god. She only wanted to be a girl.

Chloe, a self-aware, highly illegal nanorobotic artificial intelligence knows a thing or two about wanting. The growing Machine Rebellion wants her to become its god. The technocratic global Consortium wants to cage her, take her apart, and reverse-engineer her. Her family wants to keep her a secret. Her best friend Garrett wants her safe. Chloe is a thing made of wants.

And it’s time the world knew hers.

Available now at
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SY9KR5N
And everywhere else: https://books2read.com/u/mg0qGv

About the Author

Vivien Jackson writes fantastical, futuristic, kissing books. Her debut science fiction romance, Wanted and Wired, was selected as an Amazon Best Book of 2017 and a Romance Writers of America RITA finalist. A devoted fangirl and inveterate gamer, Viv lives in Austin, Texas, with a herd of small, hairy pets. Also a husband. Hang out with her on Twitter @Vivien_Jackson or on the web at VivienJackson.com.

Connect with Vivian at:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vivien_Jackson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VivienJacksonWriter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vivien.jackson/
Web: https://www.vivienjackson.com

More Than Stardust (Wanted and Wired, #3) by Vivien Jackson – Review

Tags

5 stars, artificial intelligence, Book Review, romance, scifi, scifi romance, Vivien Jackson

About More Than Stardust by Vivien Jackson

She never wanted to be a god. She only wanted to be a girl.

Chloe, a self-aware, highly illegal nanorobotic artificial intelligence knows a thing or two about wanting.The growing Machine Rebellion wants her to become its god. The technocratic global Consortium wants to cage her, take her apart, and reverse-engineer her. Her family wants to keep her a secret. Her best friend Garrett wants her safe.

Chloe is a thing made of wants. And it’s time the world knew hers.

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Review of More Than Stardust

Not even a complete chapter into More Than Stardust, and I knew this was going to be one heck of a fun ride!

Readers of the series already know a little about Chloe and Garrett. These two characters have had smaller roles in the first two books, but I just knew they were cool people. After all, they are hanging out with Heron and company, or as Chloe and Garrett tend to think of that gang – their family.

Not related by blood, but by circumstances and actions, this gang has saved the world more than once. This time, Chloe starts the story with a bang by saving the world again, when unknown forces start attacking, well, everywhere. They mistake they made was attacking Chloe’s home.

An early crisis and resolution had me thinking, where is the story going from here? Well, you might as well know, there will be another opportunity to save the world, but along the way, Garrett and Chloe are going to get closer than they ever have. Yes – to what you are thinking….

I love the development of the relationship between Chloe and Garrett. Though they have been best friends for years, there is still so much to learn about each other, each confronting their own doubts and longings. An AI and a human. Can this really work out? So, going into this, I think we all know they are fated to be together. The really interesting part is how it all works.

So much imagination went into figuring out how to get Chloe and Garrett together, I would love to tell you about it, but that would take the fun out of reading. And just when you think the romance has worked out, something happens to spoil the fun.

The fun spoilers are the Consortium. The Consortium has a lot of plans and not only do they want Chloe, but they don’t want the rest of Chloe’s family (alive). Chloe is not going to be happy about that! A self-aware, highly illegal, nanorobotic, artificial intelligence who has Garrett, a pilot with killer techno-gearhead skills, for a friend will be a force for the Consortium to reckon with.

While the story belongs to both Chloe and Garrett, Chloe is the character who gets most of my attention. Chloe’s nanobite technology is both an asset and a liability, which just adds to the depth of the character and helps her to develop more human feelings. At times she is god-like and other times she is so very human.

I feel like this third book is the boldest in the Wanted and Wired series. I refer to Ms. Jackson’s writing style, which can be irreverent, quirky, unconventional, and just plain ungrammatical, reflecting how her characters think and act. I saw this in all three books, but this attitude blooms in More Than Stardust. It brings emotion to the story in a way complete sentences do not.

More Than Stardust can be read as standalone if you have not read the first two books in the series. But, really, I recommend all three, in whatever order you like, for lawless, lively and lovely adventures.

Many thanks to the author who provided a copy of her book in exchange for my honest review.

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