Monday, March 4, 2013

Off the Book Shelf: SHADES OF DARK

Well, so far, so good. I've been keeping up with my vow -- barely -- to read one book every week of this new year. And be accountable to those of you perusing this blog, by reporting every Monday morning on what I've read.

I'm going to be reporting on a gob of books that have been sitting for years, waiting to be read. I have, on last count, over 130 books in my to-be-read bookrack. I'm trying (and it's painful, believe me) not to buy a new book until I clear off at least 1 of the 4 shelves. Yeah, it hurts when I finally read a book that's been sitting for a while, and I want to buy the next book in the series and keep the "oh, wow, yeah, why-did-I-wait-so-danged-long-to-read-this-one?" feeling going.

Such is the case with SHADES OF DARK, sequel to GABRIEL'S GHOST, by award-winning, always-delivers, SF romance author Linnea Sinclair.

You thought Captain Chaz and Sully got themselves out of a star cruiser's worth of trouble at the end of GABRIEL and deserved a breather? No such luck! If anyone knows how to torment her H/H and make the readers hang onto their chairs and groan and cheer and bite their nails (which makes it hard to hold onto the book!), this is the lady.

Let's see. Chaz is a disgraced (framed) commander in the Fleet. Sentenced to a prison planet, where her enemies intend her to die. She gets rescued by Sully, who she --and a lot of the universe -- thought was dead. Hence the title of the first book. They set off across the galaxy in a sweet little starship that changes identities more often than the Crawley girls change their dresses during Downton Abbey. Sully has a lot of secrets, the biggest one being he's a rare human telepath. He's got members of his own family out to destroy him. The story keeps going in SHADES, as Chaz and Sully and their crew follow up on what they found out in the first book. It's ugly, folks. Treachery on every hand -- including their own crew. Prejudice and genocide, betrayal, and allies who are worse than their enemies.

Not gonna tell you any more than that. Except the expected: You gotta read this book! There are more books in the series, and I highly recommend you get your paws on ALL of them before you sit down to read, because you're gonna want to go from one to the next. I'm going to have a HUGE to-be-bought list by the time I'm allowed to buy more books. It's going to be painful waiting until I can read the next in the series. But why should you suffer? You don't have to. So don't.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Michelle.
I envy you. I'm in the middle of two first round book edits and don't even have time to chase dust bunnies, much less read a book a week. Guess I'll pop over here occasionally and live vicariously through your book reviews.

Michelle Levigne said...

Glad to help! But these are just reports, not reviews. Books I already have. Books I picked up either at the used store, freebies at conventions, or I bought because I met/know the writer, planning to read them. Someday. How come "someday" is so far off? As you'll see in future reports, it's a very eclectic mix ...