Fleet of Malik by Liana Brooks
Another series from one of my favorite authors. A perfect marriage of future-humanism sci-fi, romance, and mystery-thrillers. Plus people of color in the mix. These are complicated so it takes her a while to write them. Fingers crossed that she will be a bug to write a bunch of them soon!
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for BODIES IN MOTION
Selena Caryll lost everything in the war—her ship, her crew, her family. Although technically on the winner’s side, her lack of crew makes her easy pickings in any fight—and any bar brawl. But she never goes down without swinging.
Titan Sciarra, on the losing side of the war, brokered a kind of peace with the winners, enough to let him live as the fragile bridge between the two sides. As a Fleet Guardian, he deals with the day-to-day operations of the fleet—and breaks up bar brawls when necessary.
As a Guardian, obviously he should walk the fired-up Selena home. Make sure she gets there safe.
Definitely without flirting. That could bring his delicately spun balance crashing down, dragging the fleet with him.
If only a way existed to get the bodies of the fleet into motion again.
An action-packed enemies-to-lovers romance in a world drawn with stunning vision and depth—don’t miss this fantastic series from Liana Brooks.
MY REVIEW for BODIES IN MOTION
This sweet science-fiction romance-thriller is more science-fiction than romance, creating a complicated culture of grounded spacers living in an uneasy-truce with the colonists they transported. The romantic interests were on opposite sides of the spacer war – now cold war on the ground – and all that feeds into the thriller aspects.
Ms. Brooks does it again! If you loved her Time series (Discoherence, etc), you will love this.
I admit, it took me a few chapters to grasp how the tech-enhancements created the psi-powers the spacers use. Actually, I read the chapters and took a nap – after sleeping and letting my brain short it out overnight, everything made sense.
But WOW – my friends who talk about “enhanced humans” will LOVE this series. This is exactly where people hope that technology will take us. And Ms. Brooks mashes up the enhanced human but claustrophobic culture required by spacers and their ships with the less-enhanced grounders but more-versatile culture allowed by being on planet and not worrying about where your next breath will come from if the environmental machines will fail.
Amazing worldbuilding, great characters, complicated story, murder, theft, possible political coups, … just wow.
And if you just want a sweet sci-fi romance, you got that too.
Received from publisher for an honest review.
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for CHANGE IN MOMENTUM
Rowena Lee lost the man she was supposed to marry and with him any hope for a happy future in the war. Now, five years later, with a suspicious kind of peace brokered between the sides, Rowena lives a half-life in emotional isolation. Neither her former enemies nor her crew have any use for her, and her only joy comes from her new job training cadets—something made difficult lately by Commander Silar’s constant, irritating presence. If he got out of her way for just THREE SECONDS, she could actually DO her job.
Commander Hollis Silar came out of the war a hero, the golden boy who could do no wrong. Romance came easily too: easy come, and easy go. But Rowena? Challenging. Like trying to flirt with a rock. Especially since he shouldn’t associate with her in the first place.
As politics heat up on Malik IV and factions begin to draw battle lines, an unknown enemy forces Rowena and Hollis into an uneasy partnership. Love is a battlefield, and on Malik IV, war is in the air.
A sensual enemies-to-lovers romance for everyone who believes in the power of one strong woman to change the world.
MY REVIEW for CHANGE IN MOMENTUM
An enemies-to-friends science fiction romance follows a couple who trained together as children in a generational-spaceship navy, like all members of their community, then ended up on opposite sides of the war. They were both VERY good at being soldiers, leaving a wake of unforgivable actions ordered by their superiors.
Then the navy got grounded and everyone in the civil war had to live together again. Ms. Brooks has created a fascinating society of spacers who are grounded, military who are now forced to live with civilians, warriors acting as police, etc. The tech the spacers produces results that look like teleporting, telepathy, quick healing, and other psychic powers.
This series is the best futurism, altered-humans I have ever read in a sci-fi setting. You aren’t hit over the head with it, but the enhanced human capabilities are integral to the story.
Back to the romance/thriller part of the sci-fi – an complicated political plot, with spies and terrorists, is investigated by the friend-enemy couple. During the investigation, the will-kill-each-other-someday military officers are forced to work together again and again. I love the slow reveal of how people can overcome the past.
One of the best books out there on many different levels: enhanced human sci-fi, friend-enemy romance, exploration of what happens when divergent cultures meet, and political intrigue. Five star all the way.
Disclaimer: Received an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) for an honest review.
SECOND READ THROUGH REVIEW – So my book club picked up the book on my recommendation and, of course, I had to read it again even though it had only been a few months. But in those months the world has changed and the rowdies being get up to be a flashpoint of riots to overthrow the government so that they can be changed from paid individuals to slaves again, with confrontations where the leadership tries to make it look like the poor people did the property damage has very different connotations than when I first read the book in Feb 2020. This very secondary part of the story strikes me hard and fast now in the middle of the civil disobediences of the Summer of 2020. The story still amazes and I have to remind myself this isn’t a story written in response to what is happening now, just in response to what has always been happening.
The relationship is between an Asian woman and red-head white man (previous book of this romantic series was between a white woman and a black man – Ms. Brooks often goes for PoC choices).
Still amazing, maybe even more amazing, during the second read.