Reviewed by Katinka C.

TITLE: Dark Space
AUTHOR: Lisa Henry
PUBLISHER: Loose Id Publishing
BLURB: Brady Garrett needs to go home. He’s a conscripted recruit on Defender Three, one of a network of stations designed to protect the Earth from alien attack. He’s also angry, homesick, and afraid. If he doesn’t get home he’ll lose his family, but there’s no way back except in a body bag.

Cameron Rushton needs a heartbeat. Four years ago Cam was taken by the Faceless — the alien race that almost destroyed Earth. Now he’s back, and when the doctors make a mess of getting him out of stasis, Brady becomes his temporary human pacemaker. Except they’re sharing more than a heartbeat: they’re sharing thoughts, memories, and some very vivid dreams.

Not that Brady’s got time to worry about his growing attraction to another guy, especially the one guy in the universe who can read his mind. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just biochemistry and electrical impulses. It doesn’t change the truth: Brady’s alone in the universe.

Now the Faceless are coming and there’s nothing anyone can do. You can’t stop your nightmares. Cam says everyone will live, but Cam’s probably a traitor and a liar like the military thinks. But that’s okay. Guys like Brady don’t expect happy endings.

REVIEW:

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of Brady Garrett. His ten-year mission: to serve on a deep space military station, to protect Earth from new life and new civilizations, to boldly go… Oh fuck that. Brady hates the vast, endless blackness with a passion. And he doesn’t give a shit about protecting Earth. He just wants to care for his little sister.

Alas! Ever since the Faceless, a terrifying race of aliens who have beat the human race in terms of technology and military strength, attacked Earth, boys are to serve in space for ten long years. Brady had to leave behind his ill father and young sister when he turned sixteen. The homesickness, anger and angst have been gnawing at him every day, for the past three years that he spent on space station Defender Three. Angst, because everyone has seen the video material of the handsome pilot Cameron Rushton, propaganda’s wet dream. His noble face graced posters on Earth. That is, until his space vessel was captured by the faceless and everyone on board was murdered except him.

But now Cameron is back. His pale, unconscious body was floating around in outer space, drenched in the milky fluid of a semi-organic pod. Has he been turned into a bioweapon, some terminator, is this just a cruel gift from the faceless to mock the laughably weak humans? The war hero has suddenly become the stuff of nightmares…

Oh man, Dark Space is a knock-you-down cocktail of reluctant and shy, yet passionate GFY love, against the backdrop of a vast darkness in which stars twinkle and a destructive alien race creeps closer.

This book kickstarts in such an exciting and entertaining way. Safely snuggled up in the head of the expressive Brady (a perfectly executed first-person narrative is not something I come across every day, But Henry pulls it off, and how! This is a smartass, adorable and insecure 19 years old kid!), we zoom in on the action… and on the pod. Those Faceless bastards didn’t include a manual, so Brady’s clueless superiors just cut the darn thing open. BAD IDEA. Suddenly everything is awash in a slimy liquid, people start to panic and Cameron is dying on the floor amidst it all. Brady’s desperately trying to keep Cameron alive when he discovers that his body functions as a battery. Before he has a chance to process what’s going on, a creepy telepathic connection between the two is a fact and they are, quite literally, stuck together.. Whewww..I know, right!

So I just sat back and let the sliminess and awesomeness wash over me.

Throughout the book there’s a delicious dark undercurrent of angsty anticipation. Will the Faceless come back to claim Cameron? And how will the telepathic bond between these two play out? Because Brady not only shares Cam’s dark and twisted dreams, he gets a taste of the red, hot erotic ones as well. Are the lusty ideas that start swirling around in Brady’s head merely echo’s of Cam’s own desires or are they — shocker — his own? And does it matter?

So maybe there’s a little too much repetition in how the romance between these two unfolds. And maybe the actual story is smothered in the aww-material moments these boys share. But then again, the telepathy trope made their romance both intriguing and believable. I devoured their slow burning love, couldn’t stop reading…and while doing so may have swooned once or twice.

I wish the same could be said about the ending. Oh dear, what a bummer! After a few zigging and zagging plot twists towards the end, there it was again, my enemy, my foe: a plastered on, contrived HEA. Oh nooo’s! What happened here? Why did it happen? This book pretty much started with a BANG. The part in the middle took its sweet, sweet time. And then everything was suddenly wrapped up so sloppily and rushed.

FML.

But! The biggest chunk of Dark Space was good. Really, very, recommendably good. And that cover.. Guys, you have to agree with me that there are so many terrible covers out there for the m/m genre, that praise should be given when praise is due. That IS Brady Garrett right there! And let me tell you, he’s quite something, inside and out.

Katinka’s Rating:

BUY LINK: Loose Id Store  ::  Book Store

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Katinka C. is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love.

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