Stars Across Time

Tags

Book Review, Indie Author, Romance, Science-Fiction, Self Published Book

Title & Author: Stars Across Time, Ruby Lionsdrake

Genre & Publication Date: Sci-Fi/Time-Travel Romance, March 15, 2015

Book Description: “Can love take root in the cracks of time?

Air Force pilot Andromeda “Andie” Kim dreams of being chosen to join NASA so she can go to space. Instead, she’s stolen by savage kidnappers from a dystopian future where fertile women are needed for breeding purposes. One of her kidnappers, a man named Mace, goes out of his way to protect her from the other slavers, but she’s not about to trust him. All she wants is to escape and find a way back to her time before she’s sold as broodstock and stuck in this ruined world forever.

Colonel Aloysius “Mace” Theron of the Cascadian Alliance is a battlefield commander, not a spy, but after twenty years of service, he’s also trusted by his superiors. That’s why they choose him for a top-secret mission: to infiltrate an organization of thieves using a time machine to plunder the past. He’s supposed to find and destroy the machine, not fall in love with one of the captives, but Andie is as much of a fighter as he is, and he’s drawn to her from the beginning. Yet if he fights too hard to protect her, his identity will be discovered and his mission will fail, leaving criminals to terrorize the past, perhaps irrevocably changing history and endangering everyone he knows and loves.”

First Line: Andie Kim dug through her pack in the dark, mashing her fingers against a canteen, packets of dehydrated food, a first-aid kit, and something gooey on the bottom–she didn’t know what that was and decided to embrace the ignorance.

My Take: I loooove time-travel stories. Altered timelines, paradoxes–grandfather and otherwise–I just enjoy the crap out of them. I might try my hand at one sometime…if I can keep all those shifting events straight. Seriously, I have abundant admiration for those that can keep things complex enough for that type of plot but still comprehensible enough for the reader.

But anyway, on to the book in question: I’m a bit torn on it, to be honest. For a romance it definitely has plenty of action and adventure in it to make things interesting and not just one note. The heroine is a straight up awesome gal who has strength of character, empathy, and a few good butt-kicking moves, not to mention her smart-ass sense of humor (always a win in my book). The hero is likable–and not just because of his muscles. Their banter is well-written but my trouble was I just couldn’t quite believe their love story. There was too much danger going on to buy into their building connection, especially for Andie given that she’s been kidnapped, strip searched, and pawed at by the other miscreants in charge of the kidnapping. Would she really be of the mind-set to notice that scruffy, good looking guy over there or even have sexy stuff going through her head? Um, no. Assault does not leave one feeling turned on.

And by the way, why is it they need to abduct ONLY women for breeding purposes? If there’s an infertility thing going on, wouldn’t that affect men as well? Why aren’t they rounding up the young and strapping too? Maybe that wouldn’t be as titillating of a plot as women being kidnapped? If that’s the case, there’s really something wrong with our society, but I suppose we already knew that.

What’s that, you say? I’m getting off track again? Yeah, that happens around here. Back to it.

The book is well written for what it is–a speculative fiction premise woven into a romance. There’s good action and twists and sentimental scenes scattered throughout. I liked the dystopian future and the world building. Would’ve been nice to read more about that but this appears to be a standalone so unfortunately it didn’t have much room to expand on that aspect.

The Magical: The main characters, and even the side characters, are well drawn. I liked them a lot and rooted for them all the way. There’s also some witty humor in this one that I thoroughly enjoyed.

The Mundane: The Sci-Fi fan in me was irked by one or two missteps when it comes to time-travel rules. At one point, while in the future, they looked up Andi’s life and her importance in the timeline…except, HELLO, she wouldn’t have a recorded life if she were kidnapped to the future. She would’ve disappeared that day, never to be seen again unless she is returned to her time. Given that this is a time-travel book, the author should have caught this.

Summary of Thoughts: This book is currently $3.99 on the Kindle (also available on Kindle Unlimited). In all, it’s an enjoyable read for those looking for something that doesn’t stretch the mind too much and has some romance with a Sci-Fi twist. If that’s you, I’d recommend this book wholeheartedly.

Curious what others thought? Check out Amazon’s reviews here

Want to know more about the author and her work? Explore her website here

NOTE to my readers: For a little while you might frequently see Sci-Fi Romance reviews on the blog as I’ve recently learned about this genre (I know, where have I been? For more on that, check out Candlelight in the Cosmos). I’ve strapped on some knee pads, secured my helmet, and am diving head first at the genre to get a feel for it. I think it’s going to be an interesting ride.