Tags
Amanda Bouchet, Dawnmaker, Fantasy, Fly Girl Review, Netgalley, Nightchaser, Nightchaser Series, Romance, Space Odyssey, Starbreaker
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.
Nightchaser Series:
Nightchaser (Book 1)
Starbreaker (Book 2)
Dawnmaker (Book 3)
Amazon / Paperback / Audible / B&N / Nook / iBooks
Fly Girl’s Review:
I’ve had this on my TBR pile for several months so when it came out I could read it right away. I loved the premise of a bad girl robin hood in the making. This story isn’t the beginning of the tale, but starts after she’s already quite famous and on everyone’s wanted list.
Tess is hell bent on helping those less fortunate and does so through stealing from others. But when a space lab is floating in the outer reaches and she decides to take it, she starts a shit storm that spans the whole galaxy and makes taking care of her ship and crew difficult. That’s where Shade comes in as her supposed knight in shining armor. Only he really just wants to turn her in for the money, but when he realizes her motives are good and not just plain mean or evil or self serving, he changes his mind and works to help her get away from the Dark Watch.
I really like a good space odyssey and this one did fulfill on many levels. She has a good clear vision of her world and it translates very well. I think this book was a bit slow so she could build the world and that I wasn’t super keen on. The story starts out very fast and fun, then turns to soft and mushy until just before the end of the book. The middle part needed more adventure and thrills to keep me engaged.
The character development was weak on a lot of levels. Tess comes in as a bad-ass and then Amanda takes her down a bit and then builds her up again. Shade on the other hand had a straight forward character change from being self serving to actually wanting to be a part of a cause bigger than his own desires. If that cause happens to be tied to Tess, then all the better. It was kind of hard to believe in Tess’s character when she took her down a few pegs from bad-ass. The sexual tension wasn’t as good as I was expecting either. I mean we all know Tess and Shade were going to get together.
For all those faults, I can only give this a 3.5 propellers. It gets that many because the world she built was amazing and the underlying story is something I love to read about. Who doesn’t want someone to stick up for the little guy. Give this one a try and maybe you’ll have a better time with the characters than I did.
3.5 of 5 Propellers
Connect with Amanda Bouchet
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Amanda Bouchet grew up in New England where she spent much of her time tromping around in the woods and making up grand adventures in her head. It was inevitable that one day she would start writing them down. Drawing on her Greek heritage for the setting and on her love of all things daring and romantic for the rest, her debut trilogy, The Kingmaker Chronicles, took form. She writes what she loves to read: epic exploits, steamy romance, and characters that make you laugh and cry.
A French master’s graduate and former English teacher, Amanda lives in Paris, France. She met her husband while studying abroad, and the family now includes two bilingual children who will soon be correcting her French.