A couple of years back, I won a book giveaway that included the first three books in Kira Quinn‘s Mark of the Infala Series. Last Year, I read book one, The Alien’s Bond, as the Q book in my yearly Author-Alphabet Challenge. (You can see my review here.) I’m doing the same with book two, The Prisoner’s Gambit, this year.

Being taken prisoner by ravenous green-skinned aliens was not cool, but when the Raxxian ship fell under attack, breaking apart and crashing on a planet in a galaxy far from home, Maureen realized that was only the beginning.

There was one bright side though. She had made a friend. A thickly muscled, blue-skinned hunk of a friend at that.

Stranded and alone, the pair’s attraction was obvious from the start, but much as they wanted to see where things might go between them, a new ordeal was spoon thrust upon them. One that threatened to separate them just as things were getting interesting.

It would be a struggle, but with their attraction growing by the minute it was a fight worth having. It would be hard, but if they managed to succeed, perhaps life as a survivor on an alien world wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all. Judging by the chemistry between the human woman and rugged alien male, it looked like it could be quite enjoyable indeed.

OK, look. I did not expect to like this book. I gave the first book in the series a 2-star rating last year and did not expect this one to be any better. But I challenged myself to clear some physical books off of my shelves this year, and needed a Q for my yearly Author-Alphabet-Challenge. What I also did not expect, however, was for this one to be worse than the first. I didn’t like the character in the first book and was just sort of bored with the whole thing. This one is just plain bad.

I think the author does not know what she wants to write. There is not enough sex for me to call it erotica and therefore accept that the sex is the point, not a plot or character development. (And what sex there is is abrupt, uninteresting, and 100% not sexy. Forplay, what’s that?) But there also isn’t enough of a plot, and absolutely no character development. So I can’t call it a romance or a character-driven story.

Add to that, many events rely on world-building that is so unidimensional it makes little sense. The villain was only slightly removed from being the clichéd woman scorned trope (*yawn*), and I was quite simply bored the whole time. But hey, I can mark Q off my challenge list. So it’s not a total waste!

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