Random Review ~ Series Review: Taking Shield by Anna Butler #Review #Giveaway

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Universal Link

Cover Artist: Adrian Nicholas

Hate buying books in a series until the whole thing is done? Then check out the Rainbow Award-winning Taking Shield series, just released as an e-book boxed set. Not only do you get the entire series, there’s a very nice saving on the cost of the individual books! Anna’s dropped in today to tell us more.

About Taking Shield

Earth’s a dead planet, dark for thousands of years; lost for so long no one even knows where the solar system is. Her last known colony, Albion, has grown to be regional galactic power in its own right. But its drive to expand and found colonies of its own has threatened an alien race, the Maess, against whom Albion is now fighting a last-ditch battle for survival in a war that’s dragged on for generations.

Taking Shield charts the missions and adventures of Shield Captain Bennet, scion of a prominent military family. Bennet, also an analyst with the Military Strategy Unit, uncovers crucial data about the Maess to help with the war effort. Against the demands of his family's 'triple goddess' of Duty, Honour and Service, is set Bennet’s relationships with lovers and family—his difficult relationship with his long term partner, Joss; his estrangement from his father, Caeden, the commander of Fleet's First Flotilla; and Fleet Lieutenant Flynn, who, over the course of the series, develops into Bennet’s main love interest.

Over the Taking Shield arc, Bennet will see the extremes to which humanity’s enemies, and his own people, will go to win the war. Some days he isn’t able to tell friend from foe. Some days he doubts everything, including himself, as he strives to ensure Albion’s victory. And some days he isn’t sure, any longer, what victory looks like.

More information and background on the Shield Universe here

Review

From Gryfalcon all the way through Day of Wrath, Anna Butler’s Taking Shield series is an incredible sci-fi fantasy packed with lots of non-stop action, difficult relationships and fascinating characters. Through it all we trace the career and emotional ups and downs of Shield Captain Bennet and the man he finds real and lasting love with, Flynn. At first we watch his open and long term relationship with Joss who, when Bennet isn’t fighting an alien enemy, is trying to convince Bennet to leave active duty and move into a job in academia which would ground him for life. But Bennet loves his job—even more so than Joss and it’s during one of his mission that he meets Flynn and the rest is a complicated history that eventually means loss but a real chance for happiness for the two men together.

This series was amazing. While I still felt sometimes that the technology was still a bit antiquated and not futuristic enough, I still appreciated every trial, fight and life-threatening scene Bennet and crew managed to find themselves mired in. The world building was satisfying, the characters complex and the action was gripping to say the least. Even though it may feel like cheating to some, Joss and Bennet did have an open relationship despite the fact that Joss rarely took advantage of that fact. Still it was Bennet’s incredible lust for attaining the rank of Shield Major that seemed to derail every relationship he pursued. To that end, the final book in this series is definitely the most significant for the future of Flynn and Bennet’s relationship and brutal in the losses that is racks up.

Anna Butler has written an epic sci-fi journey in five parts and each one takes us on a wild ride of a journey that often leaves your heart in your throat. I really enjoyed these books and for those who have been waiting till all five were in one set this is the series for you.

Giveaway

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Contest ends November 30th

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Blog Tour: Taking Shield by Anna Butler~ The Science in Science Fiction #Giveaway

The science in science fiction

You know what I love best about playing in a science fiction universe? You can forget all about the constraints and limitations of this one, and just invent your own shi stuff. You can nod politely at Einstein and ignore his decree that nothing can travel faster than light, and have your military space ships flashing through hyperspace like manic fireflies. Or have your soldiers use laser-guided photon blasters. Or have them wearing very nifty Shield suits that defy detection from all known sensor systems.

Believe me, it’s lovely to be able to thumb your nose at reality.

Well, to an extent. I don’t aim for realism in my writing—because it just isn’t realistic to have ships going faster than the speed of light, thanks to Einstein’s pesky limitations—but I do try and be *plausible*. So I’ve tossed those constraints out of the window only after a lot of research and consideration. I had to plan to get around them.

Let’s look at space travel as an example. Bottom line is that unless you come up with something that allows faster-then-light travel, your heroes are going nowhere, slowly. Keeping to Einstein’s rule allows you to do a lot on a slow, confined spaceship with character drama, for example, but you won’t get a lot of thrilling space action. I may be shallow, but I like my explosions and battles. I needed a way of getting Bennet and Flynn into action—military action, people, please!—and doing it fast.

I did some reading and research, because minds a LOT brighter than mine have already thought about f-t-l spaceships and several different ‘systems’ are floating about out there. Babylon 5’s jumpgates into hyperspace, or Star Trek’s warp engines, or Stargate’s wormholes. I’m not a research physicist, so coming up with something totally new would take probably years of research to be plausible, so I opted for a system that uses hyperspace—which is grandly described in the dictionaries as “(in science fiction) a notional space–time continuum in which it is possible to travel faster than light.”

Take the Gyrfalcon, the dreadnought at the heart of the Taking Shield series. In normal space, when moving in and out of star systems for instance, she uses sub-light engines that are fast, but not that fast. When she’s travelling between systems, she has faster-than-light capability that utilises dropping out of normal space, and into hyperspace. Scanning systems work in hyperspace and communications can be beamed through with you, both of which are mightily convenient! But hyperspace isn’t without its drawbacks. Ships can’t drop into hyperspace in an atmosphere or while they’re in the middle of a space battle (too much energy in flux)—that makes sure they just can’t jump away out of trouble. I mean, where would the drama be if they could all just scarper the minute the enemy shows up?

I tell you, any real scientist would be a gibbering idiot in the corner after reading this, but here’s the point. I’m not even going to set aside narrative space in the story for explaining how it works or how the ships navigate. That’s because I’m not writing a treatise on FTL travel or a handbook for role playing games. I’m not giving a physics lecture. I’m storytelling, and I don’t want to take up chunks of text with stuff that does not move the story along.

In the end, all that matters is the storytelling. A story doesn’t need to make realistic sense in this world, only in its own. What matters is one big question: what will make this story *work*?

I’ve done my best to answer it, in a way that makes Bennet and Flynn’s world authentic and consistent, even if a scientist would role their eyes and do that gibbering.

Do try Taking Shield and see if I’ve got it right. There’s a lot going on in those books, including the sort of action that has nothing to do with space travel or space battles… Because that’s the other wonderful thing about science fiction. There’s something for everyone.

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Universal Link

Cover Artist: Adrian Nicholas

Hate buying books in a series until the whole thing is done? Then check out the Rainbow Award-winning Taking Shield series, just released as an e-book boxed set. Not only do you get the entire series, there’s a very nice saving on the cost of the individual books! Anna’s dropped in today to tell us more.

About Taking Shield

Earth’s a dead planet, dark for thousands of years; lost for so long no one even knows where the solar system is. Her last known colony, Albion, has grown to be regional galactic power in its own right. But its drive to expand and found colonies of its own has threatened an alien race, the Maess, against whom Albion is now fighting a last-ditch battle for survival in a war that’s dragged on for generations.

Taking Shield charts the missions and adventures of Shield Captain Bennet, scion of a prominent military family. Bennet, also an analyst with the Military Strategy Unit, uncovers crucial data about the Maess to help with the war effort. Against the demands of his family's 'triple goddess' of Duty, Honour and Service, is set Bennet’s relationships with lovers and family—his difficult relationship with his long term partner, Joss; his estrangement from his father, Caeden, the commander of Fleet's First Flotilla; and Fleet Lieutenant Flynn, who, over the course of the series, develops into Bennet’s main love interest.

Over the Taking Shield arc, Bennet will see the extremes to which humanity’s enemies, and his own people, will go to win the war. Some days he isn’t able to tell friend from foe. Some days he doubts everything, including himself, as he strives to ensure Albion’s victory. And some days he isn’t sure, any longer, what victory looks like.

More information and background on the Shield Universe here

Anna was a communications specialist for many years, working in various UK government departments on everything from marketing employment schemes to organizing conferences for 10,000 civil servants to running an internal TV service. These days, though, she is writing full time. She lives with her husband in a quiet village tucked deep in the Nottinghamshire countryside. She’s supported there by the Deputy Editor, aka Molly the cockerpoo, who is assisted by the lovely Mavis, a Yorkie-Bichon cross with a bark several sizes larger than she is but no opinion whatsoever on the placement of semi-colons.

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Release Blitz: The Jackal's House by Anna Butler #Excerpt #Giveaway

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Dreamspinner 

Length: 114,000 words approx. 

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Cover Design: Reese Dante 

Lancaster's Luck Series

The Gilded Scarab (Book #1) Amazon US | Amazon UK 

About The Series

Lancaster’s Luck is set in a steampunk world where, at the turn of the 20th century, the eight powerful Convocation Houses are the de facto rulers of the Britannic Imperium. In this world of politics and assassins, a world powered by luminiferous aether and phlogiston and where aeroships fill the skies, Captain Rafe Lancaster, late of Her Majesty’s Imperial Aero Corps, buys a coffee house in one of the little streets near the Britannic Museum in Bloomsbury.

So begins the romantic steampunk adventures which have Rafe, a member of Minor House Stravaigor, scrambling over Londinium’s rooftops on a sultry summer night or facing dire peril in the pitch dark of an Aegyptian night. And all the while, sharing the danger is the man he loves: Ned Winter, First Heir of Convocation House Gallowglass, the most powerful House in the entire Imperium.

Blurb

Something is stalking the Aegyptian night and endangering the archaeologists excavating the mysterious temple ruins in Abydos. But is it a vengeful ancient spirit or a very modern conspiracy….

Rafe Lancaster’s relationship with Gallowglass First Heir, Ned Winter, flourishes over the summer of 1900, and when Rafe’s House encourages him to join Ned’s next archaeological expedition, he sees a chance for it to deepen further. Since all the Houses of the Britannic Imperium, Rafe’s included, view assassination as a convenient solution to most problems, he packs his aether pistol—just in case.

Trouble finds them in Abydos. Rafe and Ned begin to wonder if they’re facing opposition to the Temple of Seti being disturbed. What begins as tricks and pranks escalates to attacks and death, while the figure of the Dog—the jackal-headed god, Anubis, ruler of death—casts a long shadow over the desert sands. Destruction follows in his wake as he returns to reclaim his place in Abydos. Can Rafe and Ned stand against both the god and House plots when the life of Ned’s son is on the line?

Excerpt

I like kissing.

Like Ned, I’d spent years in hiding. His constraint had been matrimony and the sense of honor and duty that would never have allowed him to be unfaithful to the mother of his sons. Only her untimely death had released those bonds. Mine had been less noble: I had no desire for a court-martial and a dishonorable discharge from Her Imperial Majesty’s Aero Corps. Most of my encounters over the years had been quick and furtive, but I’d taken every chance I could to practice my technique.

I not only liked kissing, I was good at it.

Fast little kisses to start with, kisses that barely made contact with the skin of Ned’s throat, kisses meant to tease. He tilted his head back to let me in, closing his eyes. His mouth opened on a soft sigh. I hoped he was giving himself up to the pleasure, losing himself in it, that nothing mattered to him at that moment except the feel of my mouth on his throat and lips. I hoped so. I wanted to please him.

I kissed and licked the delicate skin under his ear until he choked with laughter at the tickling. He tightened his grip on my hands and tugged at them until I raised my head. Ha! He’d lulled me into trusting him there and took full advantage of it. He swooped to capture my mouth with his, cutting off breath and thought, bringing a dizzying warmth with his hot tongue, and making me moan.

Of course, they were very manly moans.

Anna was a communications specialist for many years, working in various UK government departments on everything from marketing employment schemes to organizing conferences for 10,000 civil servants to running an internal TV service. These days, though, she is writing full time. She recently moved out of the ethnic and cultural melting pot of East London to the rather slower environs of a quiet village tucked deep in the Nottinghamshire countryside, where she lives with her husband and the Deputy Editor, aka Molly the cockerpoo. 

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Cover Reveal: The Jackal's House by Anna Butler #Excerpt #Giveaway

Pre Order Ebook: Dreamspinner  Pre Order Paperback: Dreamspinner

Cover Design: Reese Dante

Length: 111,600 words

Lancaster's Luck Series

The Gilded Scarab (Book #1) Amazon US | Amazon UK | Dreamspinner

Blurb

Something is stalking the Aegyptian night and endangering the archaeologists excavating the mysterious temple ruins in Abydos. But is it a vengeful ancient spirit or a very modern conspiracy…

Rafe Lancaster’s relationship with Gallowglass First Heir, Ned Winter, flourishes over the summer of 1900, and when Rafe’s House encourages him to join Ned’s next archaeological expedition, he sees a chance for it to deepen further. Since all the Houses of the Britannic Imperium, Rafe’s included, view assassination as a convenient solution to most problems, he packs his aether pistol—just in case.

Trouble finds them in Abydos. Rafe and Ned begin to wonder if they’re facing opposition to the Temple of Seti being disturbed. What begins as tricks and pranks escalates to attacks and death, while the figure of the Dog—the jackal-headed god Anubis, ruler of death—casts a long shadow over the desert sands. Destruction follows in his wake as he returns to reclaim his place in Abydos. Can Rafe and Ned stand against both the god and House plots when the life of Ned’s son is on the line?

About The Series

The Gilded Scarab
The Jackal’s House

Lancaster’s Luck is set in a steampunk world where, at the turn of the 20th century, the eight powerful Convocation Houses are the de facto rulers of the Britannic Imperium. In this world of politics and assassins, a world powered by luminiferous aether and phlogiston and where aeroships fill the skies, Captain Rafe Lancaster, late of Her Majesty’s Imperial Aero Corps, buys a coffee house in one of the little streets near the Britannic Museum in Bloomsbury.

So begins the romantic steampunk adventures which have Rafe, a member of Minor House Stravaigor, scrambling over Londinium’s rooftops on a sultry summer night or facing dire peril in the pitch dark of an Aegyptian night. And all the while, sharing the danger is the man he loves: Ned Winter, First Heir of Convocation House Gallowglass, the most powerful House in the entire Imperium.

Find out more about the Lancaster’s Luck books and the world of Rafe and Ned

Excerpt

“We have a thirty-minute window before there’s a commercial flight.” Haines gestured with his remaining hand toward the front window and the view of the aerodrome. “Shall we?”

My mouth was dry. All the moisture in me was in my hands. I had to take my hand away from the control yoke—the joystick—to wipe sweaty palms against my trouser leg.

She moved slowly under her own power down the access road to the aerostrip itself. Once at the end of the strip, I halted her, keeping the engine revs high. Haines tapped the gauge showing engine power. “She’s much heavier and bigger than your old aerofighter. You’ll need to be heavier on the throttle, push her hard until the power level hits the gold line, then pull her up sharp but smooth. Ready?”

Why did people always ask you that just before you did something massively unwise? Still, onward for Queen and country. I took a rather shaky but deep breath and started her down the runway, listening to Haines’s instructions. Throttle in hard, watch the speedometer, feet on the rudder bar to control her yaw and keep her straight, keep the paddles at the right angle to catch the headwind’s lift and keep the airflow silky and fluid, listen to the quiet roar of the aether/petroleum engine at the stern, feel the shuddering of the frame in every atom of my body… and now! Now. The gold line on the power level monitor gleamed and glinted, and I pulled back on the joystick…. Keep it smooth! Keep it smooth… and up she went, whispering into the sky with the gentle fluidity of thick cream sliding over plate glass.

Beside me, Haines kept up an unflustered monologue of encouragement. “Ease her back a trifle, let the wind catch her… good, good. Feel the turbos kicking in? That will give you all the throttle power you need. Five hundred feet… level her out now. Throttle back… bring her around to port… excellent, Lancaster. Well done. Very smooth.”

I glanced down as the edges of Londinium slid away under us and we headed northwest, out toward St. Albans. Before us were the rising Chiltern hills and the browning quilt patch of Buckinghamshire’s rich farmlands basking in the mild sun of a clear late-autumn day. Behind us and to the left squatted the great black bulk of Londinium, huddled under its usual pall of smokes and steams. The air there was so thick with vapor that the buildings were little more than a dark mass in the murky brume. But here, out over the fields, we were far enough outside the city for the air to be cleaner and clear.

The sky curved above us, a bright blue overhead fading to something yellower at the horizon, streaked with thin white clouds. The sun was climbing up toward noon a little to our left and to our stern, sending our shadow sliding and slithering diagonally up the hillsides. Beneath us, the engines throbbed, the heart of the ship beating out a gentle, monotonous thrum of mechanical life. When I touched the controls, she responded with all the eager energy of a thoroughbred in a race. The earth beneath me rolled away—remote, beautiful, an exquisitely detailed toy landscape of field and wood and little villages made by some great mechanic.

The green-brown of hills and fields blurred for a moment, and I had to blink, every limb light and every sense sharp and clear, riding out the surge of joy that had me glowing as if the sun had taken refuge under my ribs.

The skies were mine again. Icarus was reborn, thrusting aloft on wings of gold.

And just for a moment, I was a god, striding through the heavens like a Colossus.

Giveaway

Pre-order The Jackal’s House and send a copy of the email confirmation (or a screengrab of it) to annabutlerfiction@gmail.com and

(i) Anna will send you the first chapter and some deleted scenes by email. The deleted scenes will be exclusive until the end of the year; and

(ii) Your name will be entered in a draw for
1st prize—a signed paperback of the first Lancaster’s Luck book, the Gilded Scarab.

2nd prize— a Gilded Scarab travel coffee mug.

3rd prize— an Anubis pendant.

Winners will be announced on publication day.

Extra goodies:

(i) If you’re one of the first 15 people to respond, you’ll also get a little bag of Jackal loot, a cool Anubis temporary tattoo and a matching Anubis brooch;

(ii) One of the next 30? You’ll get a bag of loot and a tattoo.

About Anna

Anna was a communications specialist for many years, working in various UK government departments on everything from marketing employment schemes to organizing conferences for 10,000 civil servants to running an internal TV service. These days, though, she is writing full time. She recently moved out of the ethnic and cultural melting pot of East London to the rather slower environs of a quiet village tucked deep in the Nottinghamshire countryside, where she lives with her husband and the Deputy Editor, aka Molly the cockerpoo.

Website and Blog
Facebook
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Pinterest
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Sign up for Anna’s quarterly newsletter

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Blog Tour: Series Recap~ Taking Shield Series by Anna Butler #Review #Giveaway

Series Recap Tour & Giveaway - Anna Butler - Taking Shield Series

Gyrfalcon (Taking Shield #1)

Earth’s last known colony, Albion, is fighting an alien enemy. In the first of the Taking Shield series, Shield Captain Bennet is dropped behind the lines to steal priceless intelligence. A dangerous job, and Bennet doesn’t need the distractions of changing relationships with his long-term partner, Joss, or with his father—or with Flynn, the new lover who will turn his world upside-down. He expects to risk his life. He expects the data will alter the course of the war. What he doesn’t expect is that it will change his life or that Flynn will be impossible to forget.

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Wilde City Press, ARe

REVIEW: Gryfalcon

I think the first thing that I want to say about this book is that it is definitely more military sci-fi than romance. I was kind of bummed out by that fact since I had been looking forward to reading a romance sci-fi that the blurb and tags for this book promised. Yes, there is a love story but with romance books the love story is the focus and with this one it was not.

This story is about Bennet who had many struggles to try to work through in this story...

✓      His struggle with his father and a long ago event that altered their relationship

✓      His somewhat broken nine year relationship with Joss

✓      His love of being Shield and all he fights for being part of it

✓      Finally his intense attraction to Lieutenant Flynn.

All of these are such an important part of Bennet’s story but the only part of this story that dominates is him being part of Shield and what he does as part of it, it is the overarching storyline that truly dominates this story. The rest is just secondary stories. Secondary stories that like secondary characters play a huge role in the development of Bennet’s overall mission and working through each struggle.

I love all the secondary characters who each place a significant part of the story and are completely developed characters to boot! I love secondary characters who roles are important to the story and not just a side note to be placed in the book.

The author did an excellent job of world building and although the first part of this book was a lot of information made into storyline that at times gets slightly confusing overall her prose are great and her details are phenomenal. There was never a slow period in the book because the author filled this story with awesome action scenes that kept you on the edge of your seat and all the intrigue you could hope for in a sci-fi book. I even loved the fact that the author had a jealousy factor between the Fleet soldiers and Bennet who is Shield. Shield gets all the special equipment and Fleet doesn’t plus they are treated special but this added to Bennet trying to work with and create trust in the men and women he had to work with during his mission.

My one main issue with this story is that although it takes place 5400 years in the future where earth has long ago been destroyed and its inhabitants have taken residence on a new planets, where they are no longer called humans, do not have the same religions, and all this new technology but what we didn’t make any progress for LGBT rights. Some families look down on having gay children, they still don’t marry, and even one scene Bennet’s manliness was called into question because he bottoms. Even though how that particular scene came about confused me I was still upset that we are made to believe that with all of these other advances in society we still have these outdated and harmful ideas about gay men.

Overall this was a highly enjoyable well written sci-fi story that kept me engaged and wanting to see what happens next!

Heart Scarab (Taking Shield #2)

Telnos is an unpleasant little planet, inhabited by religious fanatics in the festering marshlands and unregistered miners running illegal solactinium mines up in the hills. But the Maess want Telnos, and Shield Captain Bennet’s job is to get out as many civilians as he can—a task that leaves him lying on Telnos while the last cutter of evacuees escapes in the teeth of the Maess invasion.

  Bennet is listed missing in action, believed dead on a planet now overrun by Maess drones. His family is grieving. His long-term partner, Joss, is both mourning and guilt-ridden. And Fleet Lieutenant Flynn? Flynn is desolate. Flynn is heart-broken…no. Flynn is just broken.

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Wilde City Press, ARe

REVIEW: Heart Scarab

Just like book one, Gyrfalcon, this takes place in the same universe and was another great military style sci-fi where the romance plays a very small role in the overall story of Bennett.

The world building this author is capable of is truly inspiring. While this one had some of that is was somewhat lacking compared to what she accomplished in book one. The focus in the beginning is more on the mission that Bennett is on as well the continued tensions between Shield and Fleet. His mission takes him to the a planet named Telnos that has been run over by their enemy the Maess and he has to rescue the survivors but things don’t go as planned and Bennet is left behind presumed dead. Now Bennet has to devise an escape.

While all this is happening Bennet’s family and friend including Flynn are grieving for him and trying to cope with the loss. Although I think seeing their point of view on what has happened to him is important it does slow the sci-fi action parts down that is not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion. That could be because I like the emotional parts of stories and in this story with the lack of romance I relished these other emotional parts.

The last part of the book is after Bennet is rescued and the fall out emotional for himself, Joss, and Flynn but doesn’t really include them. It again is more about Bennet which I think most of the story is about and the other people and events are just the parts that push him to make his decisions in life. The author has a fantastic way of making you care what happens next in Bennet’s life and what those decisions will bring. There is no HEA or HFN in this book either but I think we knew that even by the time Bennet was rescued that this was not going to happen so it wasn’t a surprise. The author is good at giving you clues throughout the books that leads to some other revelations that you later think DUH how did I not see that coming but that is the mark of good intrigue.

Makepeace (Taking Shield #3)

Returning to duty following his long recovery from the injuries he sustained during the events recounted in Heart Scarab, Shield Captain Bennet accepts a tour of duty in Fleet as flight captain on a dreadnought. The one saving grace is that it isn’t his father’s ship—bad enough that he can’t yet return to the Shield Regiment, at least he doesn’t have the added stress of commanding former lover Fleet Lieutenant Flynn, knowing the fraternisation regulations will keep them apart.

  Working on the material he collected himself on T18 three years before, Bennet decodes enough Maess data to send him behind the lines to Makepeace, once a human colony but under Maess control for more than a century. The mission goes belly up, costing Albion one of her precious, irreplaceable dreadnoughts and bringing political upheaval, acrimony and the threat of public unrest in its wake. But for Bennet, the real nightmare is discovering what the Maess have in store for humanity.

It’s not good. It’s not good at all.

Wilde City Press

REVIEW: Makepeace

Just like the first two books this was a very well written epic sci-fi drama with plenty of intrigue, political games, tensions between the crew, and corruption. I was looking to see where she would take Bennet’s story next after his injuries from book two and major changes in his life.

She continues with her great ability to create fantastic action scenes that have your heart rate kicking up and your butt on the edge of your seat. This book deals with Bennet after he cannot go back to the Shield that he loves and must go to Fleet. And of course Flynn is nowhere to be seen because he is on a different ship in a totally different part of space dealing with Bennet’s father who is unhappy about the feelings between his son and Flynn.

Where we are lacking the emotion of a love story we make up with the relationship of Bennet and his father as they try to repair what is still damaged between them. And even though these books are clearly more epic sci-fi and less romance that doesn’t mean this author lacks the ability to create some pretty moving emotional scenes when the time comes. She also starts to set a path for Flynn and Bennet relationship to stop taking a back seat to people like Joss and Rosie.

One thing that has bothered me since book one is the confusion on whether Bennet is actually gay or bi. Book one she has him stating that he is gay but that in his open relationship with Joss he had slept with two women before Flynn, then he ends up in a romance of sorts with his best friend Rosie. This is something small and maybe not noticed by all readers it is one that nagged at me as Bennet’s story progresses. I do not doubt his feelings for Flynn because they make that clear in how they react emotionally throughout the books.

The teaser chapter at the end of this book looks like we will get more of the Bennet Flynn dynamic in the next book but there are sure to be more complications with Bennet being back on his Dad’s ship along with his younger sister who has made friends with Flynn but she seems to want more...

Author Bio: 

Anna was a communications specialist for many years, working in various UK government departments on everything from marketing employment schemes to organizing conferences for 10,000 civil servants to running an internal TV service. These days, though, she is writing full time. She recently moved out of the ethnic and cultural melting pot of East London to the rather slower environs of a quiet village tucked deep in the Nottinghamshire countryside, where she lives with her husband and the Deputy Editor, aka Molly the cockerpoo.

Website and Blog

Facebook

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Twitter

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