Tag Archives: Alien Romance

Book Review: Noxx, by Tasha Black

I picked up a copy of Tasha Black‘s Noxx as an Amazon freebie.

The Alien Adoption Agency is going to make all of Luna’s dreams come true.

At least, that’s what Luna believes when she boards a rickety space craft headed for a frontier moon to meet the child she will raise in exchange for 100 acres of land and a modest stipend. But she doesn’t count on the dangerous animals, the short but lonely nights, or the big blue warrior who informs her he is on permanent security duty for the baby.

Noxx is a proud dragon warrior of the Invicta, dedicated to use his strength, strategy and endurance to protect his homeland. When his commander assigns him guard duty for a baby, he resents the interruption of his career. It’s bad enough that he’s starting to bond with the little whelp, but the instant he sees the child’s adoptive mother, he knows she is his fated mate. Noxx will have to deny his desperate craving for the dark-haired beauty if he wants to hold on to his chance at redemption.

When a last-minute trek through the forest of Clotho gets them entangled in a dangerous battle, Luna will have to learn to trust the hunky blue warrior. But can the dragon let go of his duty long enough to let himself love someone, and be loved in return?

I liked this in the least invested way possible, which is all it really allowed for. Sure, it filled a couple of hours with entertainment. But there is far too little to it to be anything significant.

Look, I am wholly on board with fated mates and insta-lust that grows into love. But this book tried to convince me that two people from completely different cultures (let alone species) fell into true abiding love in less than three days. To say the plot is rushed is an enormous understatement. It’s such a shame, too, because the plot has so much potential to develop in interesting ways. But Black didn’t choose to pursue any of them.

For the record, it’s not overly steamy. So, it’s not erotica where sex is the point. The book is intended to have a plot, and it does. But it is so rushed that one feels as if they are reading an outline rather than a fully fleshed-out book.

Having said all of that. I liked the characters. It is a sweet read, and, as I said, it passed a few pleasant enough hours.

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Book Review – Infala: The Alien’s Bond, by Kira Quinn

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I won a giveaway for signed copies of the first three books in Kira Quinn’s Mark of the Infala series. This week, I read the first one, Infala: The Alien’s Bond, and can happily mark Q off my yearly author alphabet challenge. Q is usually one of the last ones I manage, and every year, I say it won’t be. Well, it wasn’t a lie this year.

As if alien abduction wasn’t bad enough, it seemed Darla’s captors didn’t want her for something as simple as breeding or even experimentation. The Raxxians were nasty pieces of work, and they had other plans in mind. Namely, they wanted to eat her, and not in the fun way. But the universe, it seemed, had other plans.

Spared a gruesome fate when the Raxxian ship crashed on a distant world, Darla found herself suddenly free. Free but on an alien planet with only the company of another former prisoner.
An alien.
A tall, muscular, impossibly alluring alien.
One who didn’t seem thrilled about taking the little human woman under his protection, at least not at first. Little did either of them know just how hot their time together on this new world would become, and in a way that had nothing to do with the planet’s blazing sun.

I simply didn’t enjoy this. I disliked the heroine. She was bossy and selfish, without any personal or character growth to give it purpose. The hero was likable but about as charismatic and interesting as bologna on white bread. There really isn’t a plot beyond trekking through the woods and reacting to whatever random thing pops up. The villains are cliched rapists, though the author neither makes this relevant enough to avoid it being nothing more than low-hanging, lazy plotting nor commits to it enough to make it feel real. And the whole thing is very predictable.

I did appreciate that the bossy heroine was almost a little fem-domme-like, but I suspect that this was accidental on the author’s part. I also liked that the hero showed emotion, even crying at points. All in all, however, while I’m sure this will no doubt float some people’s boats, it didn’t mine.

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Book Review: Iriduan Test Subjects (#1-2), by Susan Trombley

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I received copies of Susan Trombley’s The Scorpion’s Mate and The Kraken’s Mate in a Renegade Romance book box.

The Scorpion’s Mate:

Claire has never really fit in with everyone around her, but she’s carved out a life for herself using her own unique style and artistic ability to support herself on the Internet. The last thing she expects is to be abducted by aliens and dropped into a research facility, where a genetically-engineered alien soldier chooses her as his life-mate.

Thrax’s pheromones are compelling, and his status as a fellow unwilling test subject makes them allies, but Claire isn’t certain she can trust someone who is convinced she belongs to him, when all she wants to do is find a way to return home to Earth—a place that her devoted alien can never follow, because there’s no way the scorpion-like alien would ever be able to pass for human.

Still, she’ll accept help where she can find it, so she doesn’t hesitate to escape with Thrax from the facility, though their time running from their pursuers in the warrens beneath the research facility will forever change Claire, and could make it impossible for her to return to Earth.

But will there be anywhere else in the galaxy they can go where their love will be accepted?

My Review:

I thought this was cute. I appreciated a male lead that, while martially advanced, was gooey soft on the inside. What’s more, he was literally willing (and circumstantially able) to change himself to be anyone his mate wanted him to be. You see a lot of socio-cultural growth in him, even if it is only to make Claire happy. The flip side of this coin, of course, is that he lacked a little characterization. I also found the dichotomy between Thrax’s before-time life and questionable personhood and his now-time personality one of the most interesting aspects of the book. There could be a lot of moral issues to explore.

I did find the plot a little lackluster, however. The actual nuts and bolts of the story are very simple, and there isn’t anything that rises above the humdrum of interest. All in all, it was amusing enough to keep me interested but not anything overly special.

The Kraken’s Mate:

A desperate escape from a prison cell inside an alien research facility leaves Joanie in the clutches of an alien with a handsome face, a great body, and tentacles that could have come out of a horror movie. Her life back on Earth is a mess, but nowhere near as complicated as her new situation becomes when the alien test subject named Nemon decides that she’s his mate.

Nemon knows that Joanie is the mate he’s hoping for as soon as Thrax hands her to him, but he can also see that she’s frightened and traumatized. He must win a battle against his own body – which has a mind of its own–to maintain control, so he can win her trust and avoid frightening her further. His newfound friends warn him that Joanie will need time to accept him, and Nemon is willing to wait, but they all may have underestimated Joanie.

They have escaped their fate as Iriduan test subjects, but Nemon and Joanie can’t escape the legacy left behind by their captors. A legacy that brings them together – a legacy that also threatens to tear them apart.

My Review:

Do you like a cinnamon roll hero? Then Nemon is your man. Cinnamon roll describes him to a tee. I appreciated that about him and the book. It’s very sweet. And while I enjoyed the book generally, I also found it too constrained for me. The plot is contained in a very small microcosm that just wasn’t enough to feel satisfying. Here, you have a series about women being kidnapped by aliens, discovering the existence of aliens, discovering the galaxy, and this book occurs almost entirely in one room, focusing on two characters. There is so much sense of what is missing as the reader is given such a small window of focus. I won’t go so far as to say it was boring, as it is sweet. But there just wasn’t enough to it to truly grab and keep my broader interests.

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