Book Review: Duric: A Science Fiction Romance by Athena Storm

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Occasionally, I enjoy reading a sci-fi romance book just for the fun and simply campy enjoyment of the world-building and the explicit sex scenes. DURIC: A Science Fiction Romance (Trident Alliance Mail Order Brides Book 2) by Athena Storm is one of those stories.

Daphne Moebius is a member of the Interstellar Human Confederation. The ship she is travelling on is attacked and destroyed by an Odex assault ship. She is the only survivor and is rescued by a Vakutan warrior.

Duric is a seven-foot tall, alpha Vakutan warrior whose ship attempts to help the ship under attack. After his rescue of the only surviving human, his ship is also damaged beyond repair. He directs his crew to set for a crash landing on the closest moon of Aenexia that supports human life. After the crash landing, Duric and Dapne are the sole survivors.

The enemy ship has also been damaged beyond repair and crash lands on the same moon. Duric and Daphe travel to get as far away as they can, but is it enough if their enemies from the Ataxia Coalition have survived? Stranded together the pair has to learn to work together to survive and in the process discover their feelings for each other are more than they expect.

I enjoyed this quick sci-fi romance book. It is the second Mail Order Bride book in a four book series that stands on its own. The world-building was well done and put me in the fantasy world, but I did not read how this was a mail order bride story. There were also a few typos that should have been caught in editing before publication that threw me out of the fantasy in a few crucial places. The sex scenes were explicit, erotic and steamin’ hot, but also at times some word choices and phrases were campy and not what I would usually find in a current romance. That said, it was still a fun, sexy and entertaining quick read and just the escapism I was looking for.

Thanks very much to Booksprout for this eARC for review.