Book Review: The Maraan by Christie Meierz

The Maraan
Author: Christie Meierz
Series: Tales of Tolari Space (Book 1)
Publication: Self-Published (October 6, 2012)

Description: A brilliant young teacher. A seemingly cold alien ruler. A love Earth Central Command tried to prevent.

High school teacher Marianne Woolsey was teaching Spanish in rural Iowa when Central Command decided her linguistic talents would be better exercised teaching human languages to the daughter of an alien ruler on a planet 24 light-years from Earth. Deeply wounded by a childhood trauma, she has always avoided men, but now she's thrown into close contact with a man who is as gentle as he is dangerous.

Driven by duty, deadly to anyone who dares cross him, the Sural has ruled his province and led his planet far longer than he can admit to his daughter's human tutor, and he hides much more from the space-faring races of the Trade Alliance than he is willing to admit. What he doesn't want Central Command to know, he has to conceal from Marianne, but she is keeping her own secrets from him - and as an empath, he knows it.

My Thoughts: A Spanish teacher from Iowa named Marianne Woolsey is drafted by her government to travel to Tolari to act as a tutor to the daughter of the ruler of the planet. Her government hopes to find out more about the strange and reclusive Tolari. 

Marianne arrives to find a world very different than her own. Outwardly, it looks like a medieval civilization. But her opinion quickly changes as she learns more about the people, and especially the Sural who rules the largest area on the planet and is the supreme ruler of all other areas. She enjoys the challenge of learning new languages but misses human contact despite her weekly calls to the ambassadorial ship in orbit around the planet. 

Marianne has a past trauma in her life which is readily apparent to the empaths who surround her, and which makes it difficult for her to realize that the Sural is falling in love with her. This is very much a "slow burn" romance. She's on the planet for 8 years before any sort of romance begins that she recognizes. 

And while she is falling in love, the humans who are in orbit are getting more and more anxious to find out about the aliens who live on the planet and threaten to pull her out to drain her of everything she's learned but not told them about. 

But the aliens have been keeping a number of secrets and they aren't willing to share them with Earth's Central Command. Nor are they willing to surrender a woman who has bonded with their leader. 

This was a fun space opera and romance. 

Favorite Quote:

"Don't leave me," she whispered to him in English. "I need you." In Tolari, she added, "Beloved."

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.