The Shimmering by Susan Kearney – Review

Tags

5 stars, paranormal, scifi romance, Susan Kearney

Review by Riley

About The Shimmering

When skeptic journalist Sandra Lowell interviews a doctor who claims to have mastered astral projection, she volunteers to prove the doctor wrong. Mysteriously, the doctor’s new-fangled machine works, and Sandra’s mind is transported into the body of an about-to-be married, and hysterical, woman in another land.

Daveck, head warrior of West Farii, needs to recover the Zorash—an ancient totem that protects his planet. Stolen by his fiancée’s father, Maglek, the totem’s loss has meant twenty years of dangerous climatic upheaval, which threatens to destroy his world. Daveck will stop at nothing to find the totem, including marrying and forcing Maglek’s daughter to reveal the totem’s location. Little does Daveck know that the woman is no longer Maglek’s panicky daughter, but the strong and intelligent Sandra.

In order to save his planet, Sandra and Daveck must team up, all while fighting their combustible chemistry. Can Daveck learn to trust the daughter of his enemy? To accept that she’s not the woman he sees? Can Sandra find a way to keep the love she’s found? Or will their world and love be lost to Maglek’s evil plan?

Review of The Shimmering

The Shimmering is an entertaining short read that starts on Earth with an experiment in astral projection and ends up on a planet far far away. During her out-of-body experience, Sandra is pulled through the stars to the world of Farii, giving the term ‘astral projection’ a double meaning.

Travelling directly into a politically charged socially awkward situation, Sandra lands in a body that belonged to a woman who purposefully left her body to avoid said awkward situation. That was the first sign that Sandra was in a predicament. It doesn’t take long for Sandra to get into this situation so you know that story is going to move right along.

The action does proceed quickly and Sandra comes face-to-face with her true predicament – a man. Daveck is his name and he and the body formerly known as Lira are to be married. A lot of trouble (action) ensues, intermingled with an equal amount of flirting. Both Sandra and Daveck challenged/frustrated the other sexually at every step of the way – a little equal opportunity flirting on a world where women taking charge is not the norm. Sandra and Daveck quickly formed an alliance, so-to-speak, in order to face the bad guy head on. If this had been a longer novel, the bad guy would have been a great character to expand on. He was definitely insane.

If you are a Stargate fan, you might think fondly back on a particular episode – Touchstone – where the team had to hunt down a climate control device.  Similar circumstances apply in The Shimmering with the addition of a heated romance.

The Shimmering is my first Susan Kearney book since I enjoyed the Pendragon Legacy series several years ago. Both series are a fun combination of genres that will appeal to scifi romance readers who enjoy a little paranormal mixed in.  At a mere 98 pages, don’t expect a deep, complex story.  Do expect what is advertised – a couple of hours of pure escapist fun, no strings attached!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Alien Resistance (Zyrgin Warriors, #4) by Marie Dry – Review

Tags

4 stars, alien invasion, aliens, aliens on earth, humor, Marie Dry, scifi romance, series

Reviewed by Riley

About Alien Resistance

In a bleak future where government systems are breaking down and poverty and violence reign, Madison Johnson is about to qualify as a doctor, after years of study and backbreaking work, in order to keep the promise she made to her dying sister, only to have an arrogant alien take over the hospital and decree that she would no longer be allowed to practice medicine. Hassled by the resistance group that’s trying to recruit her and exhausted from working impossible hours, Madison struggles to convince the disturbingly sexy alien, who always watches her, to let her be a doctor. As she and Viglar grows closer, Madison worries that she’s falling in love with one of the aliens who caused her brother’s disappearance—an alien who does not know how to love…

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Review of Alien Resistance

Alien Resistance takes place on an earth conquered by green-skinned alien invaders. Let’s stop there and get the serious part of my review out of the way. The blurb says “In a bleak future where government systems are breaking down and poverty and violence reign”. Why are government systems breaking down? Because this seems to have left earth ripe for the picking. One of the things that comes up is that in the future earth of Alien Resistance, doctors are spending fewer years studying to be a doctor than they had in the past. Along with the poverty and violence, I thought this was one of the most disturbing suppositions in the book, as I would assume it is part of an overall trend, fictionally speaking. But the reason it is disturbing is because I see similar things happening in our world now. That is really not a subject for a book review blog, but it is one of the things that made me connect with this book.

But let’s switch to the lighter side of the book. Alien Resistance is a romance, full of humor and quite a few heartwarmers. One of the conquerors, Viglar, faces off against one of the conquered, Madison. Much to Viglar’s frustration and the reader’s enjoyment, Madison refused to acknowledge being conquered. In the meantime, the conquerors, while quick to enforce their absolute dominion, are also not immune to harsher side of life on earth and are working to improve it. Aliens on earth is a scifi trope that always intrigues me and this green, hard-bodied alien domination is a fun interpretation of it.

The Zyrgin are supposed to be intelligent and have invested effort into studying humans. But no matter how much he may have studied humans, Viglar often does not understand what Madison says, often leading to humor. As Madison said, “It’s a saying, and how come an intelligent guy like you thought a human could have kittens?”

This alien ignorance of humanity carries over into perceiving human emotions and customs. Which was just a frustrating for me as a reader as it was for Madison as a character. Then again, maybe those aliens are not that ignorant after all, just extremely stubborn and see no reason to get along with the puny humans – they are the conquerors. They do not have to be nice at all.

Then, all of a sudden, Viglar throws in something that belies this stubbornness by throwing in a Star Wars reference at a completely appropriate time.

Madison hid a smile against his chest. His earnestness was rather endearing. “I will seduce you to the dark side.”

“The force is strong in this one. You will not seduce him to the dark side.”

Madison nearly fell off the couch. She stared at him with her mouth inelegantly open. “How on earth do you know Star Wars?”

Madison is often stunned by Viglar’s intelligence, and in this case, wit. I love these little bits of interactions between Madison and Viglar.

The fact is, the Viglar and his kind are intractable, dominating aliens who do not hesitate to use violence to bring humanity in line. This attitude appears to conflict with their apparent altruistic efforts to help the under-privileged humans by building hospitals and orphanages and who know what else? What is their end-game?  I found my lack of understanding of Zyrgin motives a bit distracting from time to time.  But I did not need that understanding to appreciate the story of Madison and Viglar.

Alien Resistance is the first book in the Zyrgin Warrior series that I have read, so I can assure you it stands on its own. While reading books 1-3 might give a little additional insight into some of the less important characters, it is not necessary to enjoy book 4. If you like a hardheaded alien hero, a headstrong human heroine combined with heart and humor, I recommend Alien Resistance.

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

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Found Girl (Project Enterprise, #6) by Pauline Baird Jones – Review

Tags

5 stars, aliens, humor, Pauline Baird Jones, Project Enterprise, scifi romance, series, space opera

Review by Riley

In addition to today’s review, I hope you will check out the guest post from Pauline Baird Jones.  She talks about Found Girl and there is even a WWMB exclusive excerpt!

About Found Girl

She likes being lost…

He needs to be found…

Arian Teraz would be perfectly happy if she never returned to her cheerless, hopeless world. Her life changes when her ship is damaged. Rescued by a handsome alien from a distant galaxy, Arian longs to find a place with him and his people.

Hotshot USAF pilot, Captain Jackson “Coop” Cooper knew the risks of boldly going somewhere before he signed up for the Project Enterprise expedition. When an anomaly sends his ship into a mysterious, no-exit sanctuary about to be invaded by a deadly adversary, he is forced to trust the unusual woman who might be his only ticket out.

With an invasion threatening the sanctuary and enemies emerging from Arian’s past, Arian and Coop must combine forces to seize an uncertain future together. Can they save each other as they battle the forces trying to rip them apart, or will the secret Arian’s ship carries – along with those seeking to exploit her – separate them forever?

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Review of Found Girl

Reading a new Project Enterprise book is like meeting up with an old friend. And old friend that you have not seen in a long time who has had an amazing adventure. And now is the time to catch up with that friend.

The Found Girl story is completely separate from the other Project Enterprise stories. But there is a familiarity, recognizable concepts, and even certain characters from other books are named. From the beginning, I felt right at home with the crew of the Boyington. I settled in and…. Wait, no, there was no settling. Things are hopping in that part of the universe where the Boyington is currently stationed. Hopping, flying, shooting, shooting back, running, fixing, talking and studying – from the beginning of the adventure to the last page. Except for the time-outs where the hero and heroine think about each other, think about kissing and, from time to time, actually do kiss.

Arian is an unusual heroine. She thinks she knows who she is, but as the story progress, she realizes there is much more to her than she knows.  Or more than she can recall. She has some unusual techno-genius talents that come in handy out in space where there are battles going on and things get broken. Each chapter of Found Girl seems to reveal more about Arian.  At the same time, each chapter proves how little she knows about herself. Coop is the perfect complement to Arian. His cool-headed attitude allows him to both step back and assess and get close and offer assistance. Both are new at the ‘love’ thing, so their inner dialog is fun to follow.

I do not want to spoil anything. But for the veteran fan and reader of Pauline Baird Jones, there are surprises. Really fun surprises that are so Pauline! That is all I am going to say. Except for, hurry up and read this book before someone spoils it for you in a review. 🙂

Don’t worry. If you are new to this author, you can still enjoy the book very much. I loved this story of unusual otherwordly races, a constant sense of adventure and a romance between two people from opposite corners of the galaxy. As usual, there is much quirkiness in Ms. Jones’ writing. I love her sense of humor. In Found Girl, I also found there is a new, darker element. When combined with humor, I would even call it diabolical. And if you don’t believe me, wait until you get to the quasi-cliffhanger ending. Mwahaha.

5 stars for Found Girl, but if I have to wait too long for the next book, I am going to start taking away stars. I mean it.

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