Cat and Griffin are expecting their first child when Cat is cursed with a never-ending pregnancy. Jocasta, Griffin’s sister, sends for all scrolls with a mention of Circe, hoping to find the goddess of plants and herbs so that she can make an elixir to take the curse from Cat. In order to find her Jocasta must go on a journey that she may not come back from. Volunteering to join her is Flynn, the man whom she has loved since she was a young girl. A man who she shared one kiss with when she was 18. A kiss that changed their relationship forever. Now is the chance for the two of them to reconcile their relationship and hopefully find the cure that will save their sister and the land.
I’ve always liked Jocasta. Her love for her family is what drives her and I like how she uses her brain to avoid crazy situations. She seems pretty happy with her herbs and helping the locals medical needs. The one thing that she isn’t happy about is her relationship with Flynn. Her love is unrequited or so she thinks until this journey places them all in danger and those hidden feelings reveal themselves.
As with all Greek mythology, their journey includes several tasks they must complete before it reaches the conclusion they want. With a little help from a couple of gods they stay on the right path. If I had to guess there are two paths to a fifth book in the series. You can only hope!
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I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for my honest review and it was honest.
Captain Tess Bailey is one of the most wanted starship pirates in the galaxy. Rebel leader and would be Robin Hood Tess is looking out for those less in the path of their Galaxy’s dictator, her father. At her side is one time bounty hunter Shade Ganavan. Sent to capture Tess, she instead has captured his heart. Now partners in a crusade to rescue scientist Reena Ahern on Starbase 12, a prison fortress. Starbreaker continues Tess and Shade’s love story with plenty of action and a little heartbreak.
As the second novel in the Endeavor series, Tess and Shade’s story was easier to fall into, but even though I liked the novel I still felt like there were a couple of issues that left me feeling out of sorts at the conclusion.
First, Tess has a band of friends who are her crew, and look up to her for leadership and seem to have put Tess on a bit of a pedestal. For some reason, in this novel, she felt so young. Her reactions to her romance with Shade and her daddy issues I felt like I was reading a teenage sci-fi romance. I kind of expected Tess to be a little bit more, well, adult.
Second, when the narration switched to Shade’s perspective I was let down by how much the author told me how he felt. It seemed a little bit too narrated and I had a hard time falling into like with his character. I actually liked him a lot more in the first novel when he had his secret bounty hunter life yet to be revealed to Tess. Here, he was just a love struck guy. In fact, it felt a little lopsided. He seemed so mature and she seemed, well, young. It made it harder to buy into their love story.
My last point is about the prison break storyline. The book starts out with their meeting with Reena Ahern’s husband and their mission to save her. Then that plot seemed to go away for 3/4’s of the book. Then it picked back up at the end with their finally making that trip to Starbase 12 and the rescue mission. I didn’t know who this character was, and really didn’t care if they rescued her or not. I wondered why the author didn’t build in more of her back story so that saving her made sense? I’m going to assume we find out a lot more about her character in the next novel as that plot was left somewhat unresolved.
I always have such high expectations from Amanda Bouchet because of my love for her previous series and just like Nightchaser, this book just fell a little flat for me. ❤️❤️❤️ ❣️
I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest review and it was honest.
Copyright 2020 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved
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Amanda Bouchet is a USA Today bestselling author of Fantasy Romance and Sci-fi Romance. She was a Goodreads Choice Awards top 10 finalist for Best Debut in 2016 with her first novel, A Promise of Fire. For more about Amanda’s books with equal parts adventure and kissing, connect with her atwww.amandabouchet.com.
Capt. Tess Bailey is stealing from the more fortunate by providing for those who have less. A Robin Hood type heroine with a big heart and small pockets. She is running from the Dark Watch and has a price on her head with her identity a secret even from her own crew. When she comes face to face with the commander of the Dark Watch, someone she knows from her past. she makes the decision to jump into a black hole to what she and her crew thinks is certain death, to find they’ve landed close to a planet where they can recoup and hopefully get their ship repaired. She meets Shade Ganavan, a man she thinks is a mechanic, but who is really a bounty hunter. As he fixes their ship they grow close and we see a different side of Tess. One that is shy and sweet rather than direct and take charge. As Shade gets to know her, he can’t imagine that she is the type of criminal deserving of the price on her head and is forced to make a difficult decision, turn her in for the reward or let her walk away from him forever.
Amanda Bouchet proves again that she knows how to write a novel. This world was interesting and the characters grew on me, but it was hard not to compare Nightchaser with her Kingmaker series. They are completely different, one a science fiction romp while the other is a Greek mythology action adventure. Tess, like Cat, wasn’t sure exactly who she was and what powers she held and watching her explore and understand who she was and I’m sure in future novels, her personality and powers will unfold a bit more, but I found myself to be impatient for a big reveal that when uncovered was a little light on impact. I couldn’t quite figure out why this novel wasn’t a home run for me. I enjoyed it, but wanted more than what I got.
Shade was a scoundrel which fit this space adventure very well. Even though Tess was uncertain of his feelings, we knew from his POV that he’d fallen for her which took a little of the air out of his more impactful scenes. I have high hopes for the future novels in this series where we can get some epic adventures out of Tess, Shade and their crew.
A word to the wise, don’t do what I did by comparing this to the Kingmaker series. It’s completely different! I think I did myself a disservice, but in my own defense, I had really enjoyed the last series and wanted to escape into a book that good again. I didn’t get that but I still got a story that was good and characters that had a lot of heart and were interesting. They have room to grow and I have faith that this author will make this series another epic ride. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I was given an ARC of this book through NetGalley for my honest review and it was honest.
Opinions from around the Blogosphere
“The truth is, I enjoyed this story immensely and it really got me excited to read more of Bouchet’s work. Tess and Shade are a great heroine/hero pair and play off one another nicely, both in their anger and their sizzling sexual tension.” KJ Harrowick
The third and final installment in the Kingmaker Chronicles, Heart on Fire shows us a more introspective Cat. Pregnant with she and Griffin’s first child, living finally means more to Cat than conquering the world. She is starting to think before she leaps into danger and that second guessing has made her powers even more unreliable. She has got to figure things out before she goes to war with her mother or she and her new family don’t stand a chance.
This series has been one of my favorite new romantic fantasy series and Griffin and Cat made my top 5 romantic couples of all time. I had mixed feelings about reading this last novel because I just didn’t want their story to end. Even though Heart on Fire showed us a more emotional Cat and less of a kick but heroine, it fit. Cat has found her heart in Griffin, their baby, his family and her friends on the Beta team and she has a lot to lose in this final battle with her mother. Griffin’s support remains steadfast and even though they have a few really difficult final challenges to overcome he always chooses Cat. Griffin is every woman’s fantasy mate and he lives up to that title in Heart on Fire.
Even though I said I didn’t want Cat and Griffin’s story to end, I’ll admit, I was a little impatient with all of Cat’s introspection. I was used to the fast pace of the previous two novels, more action than introspection, so the change in pace took a little getting used to. However, once I adjusted I realized that I felt more connected to Cat than I had been. Truthfully, in the first two books Griffin was the character I was more enthralled with because he was such an Alpha male in love, which is really attractive. I took note of Cat’s emotions, but her thoughts and emotions were secondary. Heart on Fire made me have more empathy for Cat, giving the finale more impact.
If I ranked the three books Heart on Fire would fall at #3. It was my least favorite of the three but at the same time it was a great ending to the series. These characters needed to grow in the direction Amanda Bouchet wrote in order for their emotional arc’s to be complete. Cat and Griffin went from two dimensional to bright 3D technicolor…right where they belong.
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I was given a copy of this book through NetGalley for my honest review and it was honest!
What a fun week at the RT Convention! My week is winding down and I am exhausted. The RT scene is a lot of waiting in line to get into an event with your favorite authors, chat, play games and just be a part of an old fashioned signing event, but it’s totally worth it. There have been a lot of really fun events like Books! Chocolate! and Authors! with some inspirational romance authors like Tamara Alexander and Sarah London Tomas. These authors also held a breakfast Friday morning and sat at the tables with us and signed books. These were some of the prettiest ladies at the convention, as well as the most beautiful book covers! I will be having an Inspirational book giveaway in the future, which I hope you will enjoy!
I enjoyed last year’s Tattoo’s and ‘Tini’s because it was my chance to fangirl over one of my favorite authors, Kristen Ashley, who was promoting her newest Erotica novel in the Honey series. I have the novel on my kindle, but am slightly wary of reading it. Her stuff was on the border erotica already! Will I like her real erotica book? Meeting her again made me want to pick it up and read it! If you’ve read it, I’d love to hear if you liked it!
I was really excited to run over to the Sourcebooks seminar. I learned some great things about the company, the books that are coming out, and got a surprise cover reveal! You all know I am a HUGE fan of Amanda Bouchet’s Kingmaker series, and have reviewed both books on my blog. That series is one of the best series in 2016. Well, the third book will be out soon, and here is the cover! I can’t wait to read this book.
The Kensington Peaches and Cream event had some great authors signing books, like Mary Ann Marlow who wrote Some Kind of Magic which I gave 5 stars, Rebecca Zanetti promoting her Scorpius and Blood Brothers series (also reviewed on my blog!), and some great historical authors like Joanna Shupe and Ella Quinn. It was packed but I was able to pick up a ton of books! See below for my Thursday haul of 52 books and swag.
Friday I played Kiss Me, Kill Me with authors Skye Warren, Celia Aaron and others, but really wanted to save my strength for the Entangled Candy & Spoons event. Now, if you’ve ever played this game you’ll know it is cutthroat and ruthless! You have a banquet sized table with up to 10 players and one dealer. The dealer gives each player four cards then deals out one at a time and you try to catch and realease one card to the players on your left and right until one person in the group gets four of a kind. When you do, you grab that spoon and everyone else drops there cards ato get the other spoons. Blood was drawn, spoons were stolen out of people’s hands. It’s such fun! It probably wasn’t the smartest game for me to play two and a half weeks after wrist surgery, but my inner evil came out and I won the prize at our table! It was a stack of twelve YA novels! ( In my excitement I forgot to take the picture, sorry.)
To recover, I decided to head over to the SMP Pics and Pies, where I got to mingle with some authors and pick up a book and swag- and eat pie, lol.. The book I chose was The Star Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi. I was so excited to get her to sign it in person. Isn’t she the loveliest lady ever? She complimented me on my hair, and I thought she was crazy, I mean, she was gorgeous!
The big event of the day was the Avon Presents Spectacle of Lights. The crowds for this event was nuts, but they had some VERY big names that were going to make this worth the lines! Jennifer L. Armentrout! Laura Kaye! Beverly Jenkins! Julia Quinn and lots of others, but the pair I was most excited to see were Ilona Andrews! They never come out to events and they signed copies of their next novel White Hot in their Hidden Legacy series. Here are some photos from this kind of crazy, jam packed event.
The Swag Bag! The Lines!
This year I also went to the RT Reviewers Awards Show and learned that Marrying Winterbourne by Lisa Kleypas (reviewed on my blog) received the coveted book of the year award! Do you think those two days were packed or what? It was a blast! I have the Giant Book Fair to look forward to tomorrow, and I hope to stalk Kristen Ashley- I mean see what books she’s selling, as well as see if I can pick up autographed copies of the first two Amanda Bouchet books in the Kingmaker series.
I’ll let you know how it goes!
I’ll leave you with my Friday book haul photo. I didn’t include all the swag, because I was, well, exhausted. But there was some great stuff!
I believe my total book count for Tu-Fri is around 130! Do you think I’ve added enough to my TBR list? Lol. I will be doing some future giveaways to share some of my loot with you all so please keep an eye out.
Was there anything you liked hearing about the best? Authors that I should include on my stalk through the book fair tomorrow? Let me know!
You know when someone recommends a book to you and you aren’t sure that you want to add it to your TBR list? My list is huge, but my sister promised that this book was worth moving to the top. Boy, was she right! Amanda Bouchet has created a world that is part fantasy, part mythology, and a whole lot of action adventure. Cat, Catalia Fisa, is hiding out in a traveling magical circus. She has disguised herself as a Soothsayer, but her talents are so much more. Continue reading “This Chick Read: Promise of Fire (The Kingmaker Chronicles Book 1) by Amanda Bouchet”→
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Copyright 2018 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved
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