Book Reviews: Nantucket Inn and Rika Outcast
Book Reviews Week 5!
Romance book of the week: Nantucket Inn by Pamela M. Kelley. This one has been lurking near the top of several romance categories since it came out a year ago, so I thought I would check it out.
Science Fiction book of the week: Rika Outcast by M.D. Cooper. I’ve met Mal Cooper, and I’ve been looking for something not strictly military sci-fi to read. This one has a lot of military components in it, so plenty of action, but without the strict structure. Sort of.
Nantucket Inn
This book is about a widow and her four adult children. The series lends itself to continued use of the same characters. There are two “happy for now” endings at the conclusion of this book, but no real “happily ever after.”
Instead of a romance novel, this one is really a romance series where your favorite character may or may not find true love, or they might go back to their loser boyfriend instead. Read the next book to find out what happens.
These books are still doing really well, so it’s a style a lot of people must like. I prefer a solid resolution and a “happily ever after” for the characters in my romance books.
My author brain twitched at the writing. There was a lot more outlining what was going on rather than having me see it through a character’s point of view, so that bugged me.
Three-and-a-half stars
Lisa Hodges needs to make a decision fast. Thanks to her dead husband’s gambling addiction, their savings is almost gone. In her early fifties with a large, waterfront home on Nantucket to support, Lisa hasn’t worked in over thirty years, has no in-demand skills and is virtually unemployable.
Her only options are to sell the house and move off-island, or, she could use her cooking and entertaining skills and turn her home into a bed and breakfast. She desperately needs it to succeed because she has four grown children with problems of their own and wants to stay close to them.
Her oldest daughter, Kate, has a fabulous career in Boston–working as a writer for a popular fashion magazine and engaged to a dangerously handsome, photographer, who none of them have met.
Kate’s twin, local artist, Kristen, has been reasonably content with her on-again off-again relationship with an older, separated businessman.
Her son, Chase, runs his own construction business and is carefree, happily dating here and there but nothing serious.
Youngest daughter, Abby, is happily married to her high school sweetheart, and they’ve been trying to have a baby. But it hasn’t happened yet, and Abby wonders if it’s a sign that maybe their marriage isn’t as perfect as everyone thinks.
Come visit Nantucket and see how Lisa’s new bed and breakfast has an impact on almost everyone in her family. It’s the first book in a new series that will follow the Hodges family, friends, and visitors to Nantucket’s Beach Plum Cove Inn.
Rika Outcast
This book promised a kick butt female character and lots of action. It delivered.
There’s a prologue sort of thing at the beginning that isn’t really needed unless you want the gruesome details of how Rika gets made into a mech soldier, but the author does a good enough job in the rest of the book that you don’t need it.
Rika’s character arch is good, but loses its own way a few times in the story. A couple of the women were too sweet/tender to me, which is strange, but there you go. The guys crack me up.
The story could have used another 10k words to flesh it out a bit, and the story seems to end at one point, then goes on. A better bridge between the sections would have helped.
All in all this was a fun read. A bit more swearing than I prefer, but I’m sensitive about that and won’t hold it against the author.
Four stars
A cyborg killing machine, created by the Genevian military and cast aside when the war was lost.
Now she slings cargo on Dekar Station, falling deeper in debt as she struggles to make enough money to keep her cybernetic body functioning. The local gangs would love to have her join their ranks, and the takings would pay her bills, but the only thing Rika hates more than what she’s become, is killing for others.
But morals don’t buy repairs and she’s at the point of utter desperation when her loan holder cashes in her debt and sells her to the highest bidder.
When Rika wakes, she’s in a warehouse on a planet she’s never heard of, and a trio of mercenaries are reassembling her body. Their mission is to kill the world’s president, and her mods and abilities are just what they need to get the job done.
Whether she likes it or not, Rika is in the business of killing once more as she joins the ranks of the Marauders.
