January 30, 2015

"Escape Velocity" Review


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Book: Escape Velocity

Author: Jess Anastasi

Format: ARC

Page Count: (published ebook is 368)

Publisher: Entangled

My Rating: ★★★

Synopsis: Rebuilding his life. And rediscovering love... Ilari, Brannon System, 2436At first, Dr. Sacha Dalton is simply curious about the prisoner of war admitted to her med-lab...until she sees who it is. For Commander Kai Yang—the commander of the battleship Valiant Knox—has long been thought dead. Killed in action. But after almost a year and half, he's returned home. Returned to her.Kai is recovering from his ordeal and under the watchful care of Sacha, his childhood friend and the widow of his best friend. Only now, their friendship has grown and deepened into something far deeper, and far more complicated. Yet as Kai's body recovers, his psyche remains broken. How could he ever be the man he was, and the man Sacha deserves? But an intergalactic war has a way of forcing a man to be the hero he was always meant to be...


      “Escape Velocity” is a sci-fi themed romance novel. This book had me hooked from the beginning. The start was very unconventional and confusing, however, I was so confused, that it left me wanting to read more because I wanted to know the backstory. Told from Kai’s point of view and Sacha’s, the book shows their complex relationship after Kai escapes the CSS, the enemy in this decades long war.
      My main problem with this story was the sci-fi element of it. I felt like there wasn’t enough world building that went on so that when romance was not the focus in the novel, I found myself at a lost for details. Nevertheless, the sci-fi element seemed intriguing, especially since it seemed that the human race was living in deep space and was in some sort of war. Even though this is a romance novel, I wish the war and everything around it had been given a more thorough setup.
      The romance element in the novel was next to perfect. The bantering, yearning, and overall tension between Kai and Sacha had me happy or cringing (in a good way) at times. I was rooting for them the whole time, and when one of them did something stupid, I would hope and pray they fixed it. Now Sacha was very reluctant to have a relationship with Kai since she is his doctor, but in the end she makes the right decision. I enjoyed Sacha’s struggle to come to terms with the relationship because it is only right that a medical professional analyze the situation before committing. Adding that detail made me enjoy the book well because the author clearly thought as a professional would.
      Originally I was going to give this story four stars, however there is something in the end that caused me to drop it down to three. I won’t go into details, but what happened in the end felt like a cop-out to me; it was unnecessary. The book could have taken a completely better route had this not happened.
      Overall I was very satisfied with this read and I would totally recommend it. You don’t even have to be a sci-fi fan to enjoy this book.
-I would like to thank the team over at Entangled Publishing for sending me an ARC of this book for review. I deeply appreciate it.


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