Full Speed to a Crash Landing
2024
This is the first novella in the Chaotic Orbits trilogy, a so-called sexy space heist told from the point of view of Ada Lamarr, a sarcastic space scavenger. Ada gets to a spaceship wreck first, but looter’s rights don’t count for much when her ship has a hole in it and she’s nearly out of air. Rescue comes from a government salvage crew led by Agent Rian White, who isn’t thrilled to have an uninvited passenger tagging along on his classified mission, and from there it’s a cat-and-mouse setup packed with secret plots, a mysterious organization, and a volcanic eruption, all in under 200 pages.
This was mediocre for me, but not in a way that stopped me from finishing it. The aggressively quirky main character, the predictable twists, and the science that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny all bothered me while I was reading, just not enough to make me put the book down. The romance was the strongest part for me. It starts as insta-lust but doesn’t rush straight into typical romance beats, so the flirtation between Ada and Rian feels more like two adults circling each other, each keeping their own secrets, than a relationship on fast-forward. It’s the first of three books following the same pair, so there’s clearly more coming, and the ending left me curious enough to want the next one.
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