OTW Challenge: SHADES OF DARK, by Linnea Sinclair

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This is my first review of a DNF’d book

Published: 2008

Genre: Space opera

My Rating: DNF

Part of a series: Dock Five #2

Have I ever said that I have to read the books until the very end? Even if I don’t like it? Even if it’s boring? Well, I couldn’t do that with this book.

A few months ago I started reading this book, but I understood nothing and left it after the first chapter.

And then, I had nothing Sci-Fi to read in October to be published at the beginning of November. And I said, let’s try this one again! But as I couldn’t understand what was going on in the book, I read other reviews. That’s the way I discovered that this is the second book in a series. The first one was Gabriel's Ghost (2005) and that’s the book in which Captain Chasidah "Chaz" Bergren and Gabriel Ross Sullivan met, fall in love and she stops being the pride of the Sixth Fleet after her court-martial and became a fugitive.

So in the beginning of this book they are already a couple. Sully is secretly a Kyi-Ragkiril, humanoid with special mental abilities, a telepath. They are runaways in search of a gen lab breeding jukors, genetically engineered monsters

Then they discover that her brother, who had helped them in the first book, is now in jail for that, suspect of treason. And on one side she wants to rescue him because this poor guy is her brother, and on the other side, he knows that Sully is a Kyi-Ragkiril, and if the fleet discovers that or it’s public, Sully’s life will be endangered.

OK the thing is - I was interested neither in the history, nor in the characters. Yes, they had great sex for four hours and all that, but it wasn’t particularly steamy. It had two things I usually dislike – paranormal elements and first-person narrative. So, when I got to the point 20 % I said ‘enough’. There are more things I want to read.

It is not the first time I leave a book unread. It happens from time to time. Many times I trust that in the future I will take up the story. But this is the first time I publish a review about a book I haven’t finished. But it was too late to look for a different Sci-Fi romance for the OTW Challenge this month. I was struggling with this book for weeks until I surrender.

Anyway, many people liked this book. In All About Romance they published a DIK A- review. It won the RT Reviewers Choice Award in the FuturisticRomance Category, and the RWA PRISM Award in the Futuristic Category. It deserved a Starred Review in Publishers Weekly and then Romance Readers at Heart chose it as one of their Top Picks of 2008. So perhaps the problem is not in the book but in me.