Reviewed by Dee
TITLE: Vicious Circle
AUTHOR: Elle E. Ire
PUBLISHER: Torquere Press
LENGTH: 312 pages
BLURB:
Kicked out of the Assassins Guild for breach of contract, hunted by its members for killing the Guild Leader, and half-hooked on illegal narcotics, COR SANDROS could use a break. She accepts a freelance job to eliminate KILA T’RAL’s brother, JAREN. Kila claims her politically powerful brother has sexually abused her, and Cor has always been a sucker for helping the helpless.
The plan doesn’t include Cor falling in love with Kila, but as the pair struggles to reach Kila’s homeworld, pursued by assassins from the Guild, Cor finds her inexplicable attraction to Kila growing stronger. There’s a job to do, and personal involvement with her employer is an unwelcome distraction. Then again, so is sexual frustration
REVIEW:
The main character in this story is parentless, an only child, and a woman on a mission. She’s a badass, with a kickass take no prisoners attitude, making for a story packed full of action and adventure. She is also bisexual and the guy she is with when the story opens is mentioned a lot throughout the story for various reasons. I point this out early as I received the story as a lesbian romance, but I struggle to call it either of those.
Around the middle of the story there’s a huge plot twist that took me by surprise, and turned the story in another fast paced direction.
The descriptive writing was exceptional – every movement, room, sound, breeze, etc, described in vivid detail! I could picture the spacecrafts, hear the engines rumbling, knew the layout of every room! Every table, chair, etc… But, at about the 60% mark I found myself asking is there such a thing as too much description? I’m not going to get into a debate about that, but will suffice to say, readers who love an abundance of detail will certainly fall in love with the story telling within the 300+ pages of Vicious Circle.
If I was to rate this story for how well polished it is, it’d get 5000 stars hands down. I’m a reader who tends to notice typos more than others, and I don’t recall a single one, almost unheard of in the age of e-books!
However for me as a reader to fall in love with a story, I need to fall in love with the characters, or at the very least become invested in them. They were so busy fighting their crusade, I felt no emotional attachment, and any hint of romance faded to the background, until at least the 80% mark.
With all the descriptive writing I became excited when the ladies finally bedded down together… only to be disappointed when what began also ended in the time it took a guy to leave the cave, pee, and then return! I realize that’s on me, and again had I not read this as a lesbian romance I wouldn’t have even commented about the fact.
I’d recommend this story to readers who enjoy descriptive, action packed, sci-fi stories, regardless of character gender or sexual orientation.
RATING: 
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Thanks so much for reading! (Elle)