Nerys captains a solar craft, hauling freight without a crew. The tough-mouthed girl has learned the hard way that life is not simple. When a fast-flyer yacht gets snagged at the edge of the solar road and looks like it's heading for the blackness of space, like any sailor she offers a hand. She wasn't expecting the yachter to be her ex- husband, Kelvin, a grade one rat.
Kelvin is now retired from military life and thought he could handle anything - it turns out his computer goes down and he can't fly manually. Icaria is known as a dangerous planet and his experimental craft hasn't been fully tested. He's dependent on the freight captain, like it or not. The road is treacherous and rough, and creatures lurk just out of vision - spatial architeuthis, the giant squid, strikes and they lose an engine. More scary for Nerys is the concern that she just might lose her heart.
Cordwainer Smith gave us the brilliant 'The Game of Rat And Dragon' about space roads and monsters, and SOLAR STORM follows in his footsteps, with heavy emphasis on sailing. Soldiers are surgically enhanced and pumped up on an amphetamine-like drug. Was Kelvin responsible for his actions in a civilian context? Nerys has a wealthy father, a chancer and exploiter, and in consequence of this and her failed marriage she doesn't want to be dependent on a man, preferring to patch up her elderly craft and eat nutri- rations while pursuing bonuses, as in McCaffrey's 'The Ship Who Sang'. Space pirates add to the action.
A few very familiar details amused me about this far flung future: men still button their shirts, sailors still talk about walking the plank, girls about being a wallflower, and bodices are still ripped in the heat of passion. Marriages can still founder on non-consummation and annulment, a husband can be legal guardian of his wife.
Mina Carter lives in England and is both a writer and an illustrator. I'm delighted that she has given us this action-packed SF adult romance, SOLAR STORM, and look forward to reading more interstellar adventure from her in the future.
Sheβs the one who got away. Now sheβs uncharted territoryβ¦
Ten years after her rich-girl life fell apart, Rhys Devin is
a changed womanβher name, her face, and her attitude. Now
the fast-talking, hard-as-nails captain of the Grey Lady
sails the most dangerous solar roads in the universe. Times
are tough, but she gets the job done, sailing alone. Always
watching over her shoulder.
The last thing she needs is a delay, but when she runs
across a stranded sailor, she has no choice. The law of the
road demands she rescue him.
Kelwin Sayeed is a soldier without a war. The retired War
Commanderβs latest and most ambitious hobby, the solar flyer
Artemis, was supposed to prove him worthy of the famously
reclusive Solar Sailors. Instead a catastrophic computer
failure has him at the mercy of the most hazardous road of
all: Icaria.
Confident he wonβt be left to die in the golden spray, he
waits for another sailor to come along. One thatβs born and
bred to the roads, with skin wizened like beaten gold. What
he gets is a woman whose voice does things to his body that
should be illegal. Whose golden-tinted skin sparks erotic
fantasies.
The bride who ran from him a decade agoβ¦
Warning: Contains a self re-invented woman with a low
tolerance for B.S. and a tendency to snark, a hot former
soldier with a brutal approach to protecting whatβs his, and
a solar-kissed romance that spans years.
No excerpt available.
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