part of galactic empires, edited by patty jansen. not bad. feisty female MC and an interesting universe, decently written and plotted... i thought the ending was a tiny bit too deux ex machina, but worth reading to that point... ( )

A very good story and interesting tech in the future. Looking forward to read the second book! ( )

This book was disappointing. The main character, Nova Whiteside, is an interesting sort of person starting immediately, but the plot is all shambles and the writing style is probably 80% dialogue. This book needs desperately to be fleshed out and expanded upon, providing more descriptions between verbal confrontations at least.

In addition to that, this would have been much more interestingly written as two separate books: one about a rebellion and one about drug trafficking. In the last few pages the authors ties them together, but it is a very loose tie and unconvincing. Nova herself says that she discovered everything accidentally. Fact is, we go from sexual assault to a battle to a kidnapping to a rescue to blackmailing to a battle to love angst to a battle to an investigation to a battle to bomb defusing to uncovering a drug trafficking ring to her commander finally signing off on her transfer papers before there's another battle.... The world built here is interesting enough to hold its own... there is no rise and fall of action at all in the book. It's just a machine gun of high intense action to the face. All the time. And that was what I didn't like about the book.

But I did like Nova. I liked her kick-ass-I'm-doing-the-thing attitude and her strong, confident belief in herself.

This book had so much potential, and it grieves me to see that there are four more, probably all as solidly three-starred as this one. Potential to flesh them out and be so much more, but the author had his own vision and didn't flesh it out to it's full realm of possibilities. ( )

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a unique and interesting space story. While the beginning can be a little off-putting for some, I think it adds to the character development. On that note that characters are very well developed as is the storyline. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series and any other works by this author. ( )