Audio book length: 11 hrs 45 mins
Rating: 3.5 stars
Official book description:
Tess Bailey: the galaxy's Most Wanted.
Captain Tess Bailey is in deep trouble. She and her crew are on the run, pursued by a tyrant who'll take them dead or alive. Tess's best hope is a tall, dark, and much-too-appealing stranger, Shade Ganavan, who says he can help her. But his motivations are far from clear...
Shade Ganavan: arrogance, charm...and that special something that makes you want to kick him.
With the dreaded Dark Watch closing in, what Tess and Shade don't know about each other might get them killed...unless they can set aside their differences and learn to trust each other before it's too late.
So in a surprise twist, here I am, taking time away from my piles of boring correction work (I'd forgotten just how much eight graders simply CANNOT write yet - that's the problem with having had tenth graders for too many years in a row) to sneak one more review in before the deadline. I finished the audio book for this yesterday when out shopping, and wanted to add one more book to my tally before the year ends.
This book has already been reviewed and highly recommended by my friends Teresa and Rochelle. Teresa even included it in her top three books of the year, which is high praise. Having read Amanda Bouchet's fantasy trilogy, the Kingmaker Chronicles, which I thought started out very strong with A Promise of Fire, and then sadly got worse with each book in the series, I was initially not too interested in this when it came out at the start of this year, but based on the strong write-ups from people who tend to enjoy much of the same stuff as me, I figured it was worth a listen when I needed entertainment in the post-Christmas stress.
Sadly, Teresa, I didn't love this as much as you did, mainly because I kept being annoyed by Tess' frequently foolish and reckless behaviour. Sure she's brave, and plucky, and defiant and willing to do anything and everything for the orphanage where she was raised (after she was 12), but the stupid risks she takes and the extreme treatment she puts her own body through (without telling any of her crew who could totally HELP her), just had me rolling my eyes a bit too many times. You can't save those orphans if you're dead, Tess!
There's a lot to like about this book, though. There's action and adventure and some truly tense stand-offs against suitably impressive villains. The opening sequence, when Tess stupidly announces her true identity not only to her crew, but to the people pursuing her, before jumping her ship into a black hole was really very nerve-wracking. Tess flits around space rebelling against the evil space dictator and stealing valuable tech and supplies to provide to the rebels, and that's a worthy and cool cause. Her crew of ragtag co-rebels are also interesting and supportive (although I question the intelligence of her crew scientist, who even when patching up Tess after injuries doesn't notice how drained of blood she appears) and I like the back story of how they came to travel together. The chemistry between Tess and Shade was good and they share some decent banter.
Despite being exasperated by the foolish tendency of the heroine to refuse help from her loyal friends/crew (once you've announced to everyone who you really are, you may as well go all in and share everything that's special about yourself) and some of the decisions made by her along the way, I did mostly really enjoy this and will be checking out the sequel (hoping that unlike in her first series, Bouchet's writing and the story actually improves, rather than deteriorate in quality). Tess both starts and ends the book in a whole heap of trouble, and it will be fun to see how she manages to get out of her next scrape.
Judging a book by its cover: I'm really not a huge fan of this cover, although I like the colour scheme of dark blues and purples, with the orange swirling nebula in the background, behind our scowling cover model, who I'm assuming is supposed to be Tess. The tightly crossed arms, the grumpy facial expression, it just seems like the model was told to go for tough and independent, but landed on pouty, stubborn toddler (I should know, I've seen that facial expression on my child many a time recently). We get it, she wears leather, she doesn't smile - the heroine of this must be tough as nails (except, of course, she totally isn't).
Crossposted on Cannonball Read.
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