I loved the first book in the series – see my review of Star Nomad – so was delighted when I realised Himself had picked up the sequel and it was languishing in amongst my TBR pile…
After spending four years fighting for the Alliance, fighter pilot Alisa Marchenko only wants one thing: to
reunite with her young daughter. But this involves a journey to her former home world, which has become the last imperial stronghold. Since the imperials have a lot of reasons to loathe members of the Alliance right now, just getting down to the planet will be a challenge, and it doesn’t help that her passengers are stirring up trouble of their own…
I love the ongoing relationship that Alisa has with her various passengers – and the prickling knowledge that some of their interests are on a collision course. The ongoing tensions help to keep the stakes raised – and when it all kicked off, I was unsure whether former or current loyalties would prevail. The action scenes worked well because of this additional consideration, though it didn’t hurt that they were well-written and nicely paced so that I had no difficulty in following exactly who was doing what to whom without having to go back and reread it.
The other bonus with this book is the fact that the driver powering the overarching narrative is Alisa’s search for her lost daughter – I find it really refreshing that it is a family dynamic taking the story forward in a space opera adventure. It doesn’t hurt that in amongst the tension, danger and inevitable worry about her lost child, there is also plenty of humour in the form of Alisa’s smart mouth. The more dodgy the situation gets, the more Alisa copes by coming out with inappropriate humour – it certainly helped me bond with her. I tend to have a similar tic, but mostly keep my off-colour comments to myself and I suspect I’m not the only one.
Overall, I found this sequel an enjoyable continuation of the series and it won’t be too long when I need more space opera goodness in my life, before I’ll be hunting down Starseers, the third book in this entertaining series. Recommended for fans of character-led space opera adventure.
9/10
Brainfluff 