Favorite Quote: “I’m not going to be caught naked, midcoitus when the ship enters hyperspace. That’s asking for sprains in places we don’t want.”

The blurb and the cover drew me into this one and I ended up really enjoying it. I’ll say up front while there is a HEA and love scenes, the romance does take a back seat to the sci-fi action. But the heroine is awesome, and her crew is pretty awesome, and they carry the story well.

Captain Lindana Nyota is this awesome heroine and she lives in deep outer space on her ship, the Mombasa. This book takes place in the future in a world where the US (the United Alliance of Democratic Nations, or just the Alliance) and Soviet Union took their competitive space program and started claiming territories off of Earth. Lindana grew up on Earth, in Kenya with her brother Tomas. They both joined the Alliance Navy and found their way out of Kenya into space and work together, with about 50 other crew members and are space privateers. Not quite violent like pirates, Lindana and her crew peacefully as possible enter ships and take goods. Lindana’s heart was broken years ago by her lover, Gabriel, and when they land in a neutral territory to pick up their new intel officer after their former one died unfortunately, Lindana can’t believe her eyes when she finds out Gabriel has been assigned to her ship.

Gabriel grew up wealthy in what is called the core colonies. These colonies tired of the war between the Alliance and the Soviets and broke off to form their own government. Gabriel though works for the Alliance and has been deep undercover in classified missions as of late. He gets sent to Lindana’s ship and is secretly told there is a mole aboard that he must discover, without alerting anyone. Gabriel really wants to fix things with Lindana, after he broke her heart years ago, and keeping this secret from her doesn’t bode well for that, but he has to complete his mission. Lindana wants nothing to do with Gabriel, but receives direct orders to keep him aboard, and she grudgingly allows it. When they find out a friend of Lindana’s is alive on a Soviet ship with knowledge of a soviet weapon, the action picks up as they race to discover what’s really going on.

Lindana is just a really cool heroine. She has earned the respect of her crew and they work hard for her. She can be tough, but fair and even jokes around with them sometimes. Her brother Tomas, along with other prominent crew members really added a lot to this story.

She paused and studied her brother with suspicious eyes. “Are you going to the engine room?”

“No. Yes. Maybe.”

She poked him in the chest. “You are banned from the engine room. Is there a medical emergency there?”

“No.”

“Were you invited?”

“No…” Tomas winced, looking sheepish.

“Go back to the med bay. Now.”

“Why do you hate fun?”

Lindana definitely has a tough exterior but feels vulnerable around Gabriel when he comes aboard, a weakness she fights. She is so very attracted to him, even though he dumped her long ago. She doesn’t want to be attracted to him, and she doesn’t want him to be helpful with her crew, but she learns that no matter how mad she tries to stay at him, he slowly charms her.

She didn’t have time for complications now. She’d worry about Gabriel Steele and his indecently tight pants after the mission.

Darn those tight pants.

There is not a lot of time for courtship in this book, as dangers come at them from many angles. Once Lindana realizes Gabriel is truly for her, and she forgives him for past mistakes, their love is cemented quickly. As I mentioned earlier, more focus is on the twist and turns in the action in this one than the romance, but it played out well for me.

“It’s too late for us.”

“I refuse to believe that.”

“Then you’re an idiot.”

Gabriel grinned. “I prefer to think of myself as a reformed hopeless romantic.”

“And you think we’re going to fly off into the sunset and live happily ever after?” Lindana said skeptically. “This isn’t a fairy tale, and I’m not a princess.”

“You’re more like the knight in this equation,” Gabriel said.

“Really? You expect me to rescue you?”

“You’re the only one who can.”

The moments we get with them are super cute. The banter is well done in this.

“Were you always this pale?” Lindana asked. She straddled his hips and laid her palms atop his chest. Gabriel covered her hands with his, then drew one to his lips and pressed a kiss against her palm, followed by the inside of her wrist. Lindana had never before considered the wrist to be an erogenous zone, but she realized she’d been missing out as a curl of delicious pleasure shivered through her.

“Too much time spent in space,” he said. “Not enough natural sunlight.”

“You won’t be seeing much of that aboard the Mombasa, either.”

“You’ll have to be my sunshine then.”

Lindana rolled her eyes. “That was terrible. Adorable, but terrible.”

The action has many twists and turns that kept me engaged to the end. A fun sci-fi romance – looking forward to book two!

Grade: B