Publication date: January 1, 2019
Cover blurb:
A delicious new heart-pounding romantic adventure from USA Today bestseller Amanda Bouchet!
Captain Tess Bailey and her crew of Robin Hood-like thieves are desperate and on the run. Pursued by a vicious military general who wants them dead or alive, Tess has to decide if she can trust Shade Ganavan, a tall, dark and arrogant stranger with ambiguous motivations.
Shade Ganavan had oodles of arrogance, oodles of charm, and oodles of something that made me want to kick him in the nuts.
What Tess and Shade don’t know about each other might get them killed…unless they can set aside their differences and learn to trust each other—while ignoring their off-the-charts chemistry.
*****
Tess Bailey and her crew of Nightchasers are on the run from the Dark Watch because they have managed to steal a floating lab filled with vaccines which they want to distribute more fairly than the existing government would. While attempting to hide in the Dark, they are surprised by the sudden appearance of a Dark Watch ship commanded by Captain Bridgebane…who is also her uncle. As it turns out, Tess Bailey is a pseudonym and her real name is Quintessa Novalight, the long lost daughter of the evil Overseer and believed to be dead. (This is the kind of twist I would expect to come later in the story, but I loved how it happened!) In order to escape capture and prevent the vaccines from falling back into the Dark Watch’s hands, Tess decides to take the Endeavor into a black hole, expecting that to be the end.
But of course it isn’t, otherwise this would have been a REALLY short book! When they emerge on the other side, they are forced to navigate to a nearby planet Albion 5 to restock their supplies and make repairs to the ship. Now is when the fun really starts! In Albion City, Tess meets Shade Ganavan when she goes to his store to arrange for the needed parts and labor. Instant sparks of course! There is a lot of fun banter between the characters while there is no missing where their relationship is headed, it allows for a lot of humor to balance out the steam.
More importantly though, their meeting has a side effect of leading Tess to a bookstore owner named Sue and her cats, of which Bonk is the tabby who ‘picks’ Tess to be his person. (As an aside, is there any greater combination than cats in a bookstore?? It’s like Amanda knows my secret dream-when I win the lottery, I want to open a bookstore slash cat sanctuary!) While granted this is a small part of the storyline, it was one of my favorite parts
the fact that cats appear at all in this book was enough to gain my interest, even if it hadn’t been written by Amanda!
In addition to the cats though, there is one other aspect I loved and that is the secrets that Tess and Shade hide from each other in the beginning. Tess of course is hiding her past and the true reason she is on the run and Shade? Well, it turns out that in addition to being a shop owner slash repair man, he is also a successful bounty hunter-and the next big contract is on Tess. We all know that I am a huge fan of angst and throw in some misunderstandings (and sex!) and I’m a happy camper! I would definitely recommend this to readers who like space opera, with a touch of suspense on the side. I am looking forward to the next book in the series, and the further adventures of Bonk, uh Tess and Shade!
Thank you to Sourcebooks Casablanca and Netgalley for the chance to read it early, though I did purchase a paperback copy as well…which I am looking forward to getting signed by Amanda at Apollycon!