Book Reviews

Book Blurb

Lancer Andira Tal made Alsean history when she accepted the producer’s challenge to work a holding as a field laborer. She should have known that the peace of Hol-Opah couldn’t last. Now her hosts are cleaning up blast debris and she’s searching for both a traitor and a missing member of her family.

 

Just as she thinks she’s solved one of her problems, Tal falls into a meticulously planned trap that threatens her title, her new family, and her freedom. To top it all, she loses her greatest support right when she needs it most. There’s no possible way out, so she’ll have to do the impossible—and the clock is ticking.

 

Book Review

The remarkable second half of ‘Without a Front’ picks up the story right after the spine-tingling cliff-hanger at the end of ‘The Producer’s Challenge’. All the threads the author so carefully positioned in book two – be they around different relationships, political machinations, or empathic powers - are picked up and brought to a conclusion in this volume. But that is not all. Revelations about Lancer Tal’s personal past, the spiritual aspect of her bond with Salomen, and further details about Alsean history and abilities kept me turning the pages and sinking deeper into this alien society as I read on. There are so many layers to this world and these people that I am sure I’ll discover new things when I reread the books in this series. Just one point of “warning”: you need to read the previous book before this one, or else you will not know what is going on. Consequently anything and everything in this review could be considered a spoiler for ‘The Producer’s Challenge’.
 
Lancer Tal is put to the test in this third book of the series in every conceivable way. Her personal challenge of finding out more about a producer’s life may have finished when she leaves Hol-Opah, but there are more than enough political messes and threats to Alsea left now that she has returned to her job. It is hard for her to accept the fact that she is now bonded, and not because she doesn’t love Salomen with all her heart. It is the practical aspect of living together, of sharing and not sharing her thinking, and the fact that Salomen sees things very differently in most cases. Lancer Tal is used to doing things a certain way, and having to adapt, as much as she wants to, is way harder than she expected.

Salomen does not have it any easier. She now faces the second part of their bet: finding out what a lancer does, how being a warrior is different from being a producer, and dealing with suddenly being the bondlancer. Her new role is full of challenges from a procedural point of view, but her personal charm and natural ability to relate to people makes things a lot easier. Learning to accept what it means to be a warrior is more difficult, and Tal excluding her from the details while she can still feel everything through their bond upsets her deeply more than once. Then there are her developing empathic abilities, and since a lot of them turn out to be new, she and Tal have to pretty much struggle through their discoveries without outside training or help.

There is so much pain and tragedy in this book, but there is also a lot of love. Guards Vellmar and Gehrain begin to play new roles, and Colonel Micah is back. Jaros is his usual charming nine-year-old self, and the whole Opah family provides much-needed positive support throughout the political chaos and hunt for those who try to ruin Alsea’s future. There are quite a few hints about Alsean mythology and theology as well, and I hope to find out more in the next book of the series.

If you like this series and want to know what’s next for Lancer Tal and Raiz Opah, if you enjoy political thrillers with tough women fighting for their lives, and if you’re looking for a read that is as intricately put together and suspenseful as it is fascinating in its conclusion, then you will probably like this novel as much as I did. I can’t wait to see what’s next for the Alseans!

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been provided by Ylva Publishing for the purpose of a review.

Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Novel, 140000 words
Heat Level
Publication Date	15-November-2015
Price	$8.99 ebook, $16.99 paperback
Buy Link	http://bit.ly/1Sp43zp