S.E. Smith has become one of my go to authors for Sci-Fi romances. Her stories always have a great mix of action, humor and steamy romance, and are very entertaining to listen too. I love Smith’s The Dragon Lords of Valdier, Sarafin Warriors, and Curizan Warriors are three series that are intertwined and have events that have taken place simultaneously but from a different POV’s; as a result, I’m listening to these series in event order rather than straight series order. It adds more depth to the amazing world Smith has created and Choosing Riley was a great addition to this world building. One thing I’ve come to expect from a Smith story is a funny dialogue, steamy sex scenes, strong female characters and of course dominate alpha male characters.
In my opinion, for any well developed series to succeed there must be a wide cast of characters with distinct personalities, and Smith definitely delivers with interesting characters; however, I have to be honest, Riley, the lead female character was one of my least favorites so far. Her heart was in the right place, but her dialogue, and clueless actions at times came across as childish. Don’t get me wrong, Riley had me laughing but she also had me rolling my eyes.
David Brenin always delivers a stellar performance and does a excellent job with both the female and male characters.
While Riley could be annoying at times, this was still an entertaining story and well worth the time and credit. I’m looking forward to listening to the next story in the series.