Short and Sweet Reviews #5

Still on a curise ship and still have very slow internet; just short reviews with no links and no covers.

Prophecy by Lea Kirk – Kirk says that she started Prophecy as a teenager and finished it years later.  She uses two familiar tropes as the base for the story.  The first is an alien invasion of Earth.  The second is the soul mate trope.  This time it is one alien, but not an alien from the race that invaded but one from a race whose job it was to protect Earth.  The second soul mate is a Earth human.  The two join together to drive the invaders away from Earth.  Kirk did a good job of the attraction and romance between the two.  Where she fell down was in fleshing out the invasion and the fight against the alien invaders.  I wanted more details of both but they were glossed over and the focus was on the romance.  This is book one in the series so I hope that future books do better blending the romance and the action.

Pico’s Crush by Carol Van Natta – This is book three of the Central Galactic Concordance. While the story is a stand alone it does feature characters from the first two books.  Pico is a new character and while she is featured in the title she is one of several characters who drive the story.  The story is full of danger and tension.  Pico, Sojaire, Jerzi, her dad,  and Andra, her college professor ,carry the story and there is a romance for all four.  At the end we once again go back to the advice from the president of La Plata, a forecaster.  She said to know who your friends are and keep them close.  Also to have more than one-way out of the city and off of the planet.  A great set up for future books in the series and a really good story to move the story line along.

Peony in Love by Lisa See – This is a book club book here on the cruise and I joined because it moves me out of my reading comfort zone.  I started reading about 1/3 of the way through wanted to put it down and stop.  I did not and after pushing through a few pages more I could not put it down.  The story is set in China.  The main character is a teen age girl who loves The Peony Pavilion and takes much of it to heart.  Only a young girl would do what she did and that is the heart of the story.  A interesting book that highlights life in China around the 1600 hundreds.