3-3.5 stars
This was an enjoyable story overall. The main reason I only rated it as 3-3.5 stars was because for the first third of the story, Carmen was the epitome of a TSTL heroine. I realize she was supposed to be suffering from extreme grief over her late husband but he died 3 years before the story started and I haven’t lost a husband but her actions seemed very OTT to me. Her continual attempts to escape when she had no chance of getting back to Earth on her own were just lame and she was way to willing to do things that could kill herself and others. After the first third of the story, she was alright but not in a way that made up for her earlier actions.
Carmen used to work in security with her husband and childhood sweetheart, Scott. Scott was killed 3 years ago on a job and Carmen has been obsessed with killing the guy who killed Scott. Since the guy is a big time drug lord and isn’t easy to get to, Carmen fully expects to die in this mission of revenge and she’s ok with it. Ariel (from book #4) is sister to Carmen and promised to help Carmen with her revenge.
Creon is a dragon shifter from the planet of Valdier. His older brother, Zoran, is the King of their people (he’s the hero from book #1) and Creon serves his people as a military commander along with his other brothers. Creon is the youngest of the brothers but he carries a heavy weight due to things that happened in the recent war.
Carmen is kidnapped from Earth along with 4 other women (the heroines from books 1-4). At the time, Carmen had been shot by a bad guy so being kidnapped by the Valdier was actually the only thing that saved her life. Carmen is extremely pissed when she wakes up to find herself not on Earth and does her best to escape the ship transporting her (many times). She doesn’t have much success and ends up on Valdier. There, Carmen meets Creon and she proceeds to physically assault him and then run off. He has to capture her and this leads to a whole bunch of crap between Creon and Carmen. He realizes that she’s his true mate and that he’ll die if she leaves but she freaks any time someone refuses to take her home so Creon doesn’t have it easy.
Creon mother helps things a bit by talking to Carmen and Creon even explains some things to Carmen as well. She doesn’t care and keeps trying to escape and even risks the deaths of more than just herself with her insane desire to escape no matter what. Thankfully, this ends about a third of the way through the story and Carmen suddenly lets go of her need for revenge and accepts her relationship with Creon (can you say whiplash?). From there, things go pretty smoothly (with some notable exceptions) and things get worked out so that by the end, Creon and Carmen are happily starting on a HEA together.
This was an enjoyable story. Carmen was alright once she got past her “issues”. Creon was a good hero….I was actually impressed with his ability to communicate with Carmen (since most of his brothers didn’t communicate with their new mates…like at all). Creon wasn’t perfect about it but he made a good effort and did what he had to to make her happy. Overall, this was a good story. Now that the 5 main heroines have had their books, I’m not sure if I’ll continue the series but I liked Morian in previous books so I’m considering reading her book as well.