Book Review: Full Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth Revis

Full Speed to a Crash Landing
Author: Beth Revis
Series: Chaotic Orbits (Book 1)
Publication: DAW (August 6, 2024)

Description: A high octane sexy space heist from New York Times-bestselling author Beth Revis, the first in a novella trilogy

Ada Lamarr may have gotten to the spaceship wreck first, but looter’s rights won’t get her far when she’s got a hole in the side of her ship and her spacesuit is almost out of air. Fortunately for her, help arrives in the form of a government salvage crew—and while they reluctantly rescue her from certain death, they are not pleased co to have an unexpected passenger along on their classified mission.

But Ada doesn’t care—all that matters to her is enjoying their fine food and sweet, sweet oxygen—until Rian White, the government agent in charge, starts to suspect that there’s more to Ada than meets the eye. He’s not wrong—but he’s so pretty that Ada is perfectly happy to keep him paying attention to her—at least until she can complete the job she was sent to pull off. But as quick as Ada is, Rian might be quicker—and she may not be entirely sure who’s manipulating who until it’s too late…

A phenomenally fun novella that kicks off a trilogy of sexy space heists and romantic tension, Full Speed to a Crash Landing is packed with great characters and full of twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the end.

My Thoughts: The first novella in the Chaotic Orbits trilogy stars Ada Lamarr. Ada is seconds from death in her holed spaceship before the crew of the government ship also hovering over the wreck of a spaceship on a planet with heavy tectonic activity finally rescues her. 

She finds the crew to be both suspicious and secretive. Their mission to recover something from the wreck conflicts with Ada's mission to salvage metals from the wreck. Or does it? She is hired by the crew to assist with a rescue of a box containing the reason the government ship is there. 

The story is filled with twists and turns with lots and lots of secrets. Ada isn't at all who she portrays herself to be. There is politics underlying the whole story. The politics concerns jockeying among the planets discovered and populated by people from Earth. And Earth is in danger of being abandoned by those new planetary settlements. It's too polluted and too dangerous to be more than a tourist destination for tourists taken to selected and sanitized places on Earth. 

Ada may or may not be working to benefit Earth. Or she may just be out to make money for herself and for her employers. This was a fun story that left me with lots of questions. 

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

Friday Memes: Murder at Moot Point by Marly Millhiser

 Happy Friday!

Book Beginnings is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader. She asks that the first sentence is posted along with the author and title of the book and the reader's initial thoughts on the sentence, the book, or anything else it inspires. 

Carrie at Reading Is My Superpower.org also provides a linky for sharing first lines and connecting with others. This meme asks that the chosen books be PG or marked as Mature if they are not. 

Beginning:

So.

I'm not in an ideal situation right now.

Friday 56:

Surprisingly, it's Magnusson who tentatively raises his hand, as if unsure that's what he should do. "Oh, really?" I say, turning my attention to him. "Which part?"

"Iceland."

This week I am spotlighting Full Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth Revis. This is a recent purchase and the first in a trilogy of novellas. Here is the description from Amazon:

A high octane sexy space heist from New York Times-bestselling author Beth Revis, the first in a novella trilogy

Ada Lamarr may have gotten to the spaceship wreck first, but looter’s rights won’t get her far when she’s got a hole in the side of her ship and her spacesuit is almost out of air. Fortunately for her, help arrives in the form of a government salvage crew—and while they reluctantly rescue her from certain death, they are not pleased to have an unexpected passenger along on their classified mission.

But Ada doesn’t care—all that matters to her is enjoying their fine food and sweet, sweet oxygen—until Rian White, the government agent in charge, starts to suspect that there’s more to Ada than meets the eye. He’s not wrong—but he’s so pretty that Ada is perfectly happy to keep him paying attention to her—at least until she can complete the job she was sent to pull off. But as quick as Ada is, Rian might be quicker—and she may not be entirely sure who’s manipulating who until it’s too late…

A phenomenally fun novella that kicks off a trilogy of sexy space heists and romantic tension, Full Speed to a Crash Landing is packed with great characters and full of twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the end.

Audiobook Review: The Bronze Skies by Catherine Asaro

The Bronze Skies
Author: Catherine Asaro
Narrator: Morgan Hallett
Series: Major Bhaajan (Book 2)
Publication: Recorded Books (June 11, 2018)
Length: 13 hours and 11 minutes

Description: Tough female P.I. exploring the underworld of a vast star empire. Book 2 in a new series set in the world of Catherine Asaro's Skolian Empire series.

Major Bhaajan achieved the impossible. Born to the Undercity, the slums below the City of Cries on the planet Raylicon, she broke free from crushing poverty and crime to become a military officer with Imperial Space Command. Now retired from military duty, she walks the mean streets of Undercity as a private investigator. And she is about to embark on her most challenging case yet.

Summoned by no less than the Ruby Pharaoh herself, Major Bhaajan is tasked with finding a killer. But this is no ordinary murderer. The Ruby Pharaoh witnessed a Jagernaut cut down Assembly Councilor Tap Benton-which shouldn't have been possible. The Jagernauts are the elite of the elite soldiers in the Imperial Space Command. What's more, the spinal node implanted in all Jagernauts should have prevented the murder. But the Ruby Pharaoh is sure of what she saw, and she has reason to believe that the Jagernaut will kill again. Now, Major Bhaajan must hunt down a killer before it is too late. To do so, she must return to the one place on Raylicon she knows best: Undercity.

My Thoughts: The second Major Bhaajan mystery takes Bhaaj deep into the Undercity which has been inhabited by her people for years. Only recently, the Majda and other residents of the City of Cries learned that the residents of the Undercity have a much higher than normal number of psions.

Psions are essential to the survival of the Imperialate on its vast network of planets. But Bhaajan is determined that her people not be exploited. She wants help because they live in poverty and suffer from birth defects because of their millennia of inbreeding but she wants the help in a way that fits in with the culture of the Undercity. 

When the Jagernaut accused of murdering a man flees to Raylicon and the Undercity, the Ruby Pharaoh hires her to find the woman. But the search leads Bhaaj to a much more dangerous thing than one out of control Jagernaut. An EI is waking up and has the goal of wiping out humanity. Its waking is disturbing the Psions in the Undercity and wreaking havoc with the mental network that runs things. 

Bhaaj, the Ruby Pharaoh, and an order of monks must find a way to defeat the EI which calls itself Oblivion before all humanity is destroyed. 

This was an enjoyable and exciting second episode in the series. I like seeing Bhaaj's growth as she comes to terms with her past and begins to build a new future for herself and for her people. 

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

ARC Review: Chaos Terminal by Mur Lafferty

Chaos Terminal
Author: Mur Lafferty
Series: The Midsolar Murders (Book 2)
Publication: Ace (November 7, 2023)

Description: Mallory Viridian would rather not be an amateur detective, and fled to outer space to avoid it…but when one of the new human arrivals on a space shuttle is murdered, she’s back in the game.

Mallory Viridian would rather not be an amateur detective, thank you very much. But no matter what she does, people persist in dying around her—and only she seems to be able to solve the crime. After fleeing to an alien space station in hopes that the lack of humans would stop the murders, a serial killer had the nerve to follow her to Station Eternity. (Mallory deduced who the true culprit was that time, too.)

Now the law enforcement agent who hounded Mallory on Earth has come to Station Eternity, along with her teenage crush and his sister, Mallory’s best friend from high school. Mallory doesn’t believe in coincidences, and so she’s not at all surprised when someone in the latest shuttle from Earth is murdered. It’s the story of her life, after all.

Only this time she has more than a killer to deal with. Between her fugitive friends, a new threat arising from the Sundry hivemind, and the alarmingly peculiar behavior of the sentient space station they all call home, even Mallory’s deductive abilities are strained. If she can’t find out what’s going on (and fast), a disaster of intergalactic proportions may occur.…

My Thoughts: This is the second book in the Midsolar Mysteries which take place on Space Station Eternity. The station is filled with aliens of all varieties and just a few humans. Mallory Viridian came to live on the space station because she wanted to get away from murders. They happened around her all the time on Earth.

She learned in the first book of the series that she was stung by wasp-like aliens called the Sundry who made her part of their hive. It ws this that gave her the ability to solve murders.

Now the station has a new host - a human named Mrs. Brown - who takes off in a sentient spaceship to learn more about her new duties and leaves Mallory in charge. Unfortunately, Mallory is losing her ability to solve murders, the blue and Silver Sundry are being attacked by the green Sundry who act as cuckoos in the hive, and humans she has known since middle school are coming to the station along with the new ambassador. 

The green Sundry are the least intelligent of all Sundry which causes a problem since they are in charge of the systems that run the space station and they are not listening to her or any of the other aliens except Tina who is Gneiss and who has problems with impulse control. Tina is slated to become queen of a prison planet, but she has broken Gneiss laws in regard to transforming herself and her government wants to arrest her. 

This was a wonderful story filled with adventure, intriguing aliens, and even a possible romance. Oh, and Mallory solves a murder and her friend Xan, an AWOL soldier from Earth, acts as Tina's advisor which, after some confusion, manages to get things back to normal. Or as close to normal as it can be on this space station.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.