Reviewed by Dan

TITLE:    Song of the Navigator   

AUTHOR:     Astrid Amara

PUBLISHER:  Samhain Publishing, Ltd

LENGTH:     224 Pages

BLURB:

Worst Possible Birthday: Being sold into slavery by none other than your lover.

Tover Duke’s rare ability to move anything instantly across light-years of space makes him a powerful, valuable asset to the Harmony Corporation, and a rock star among the people of the colonies. His life is luxurious. Safe. Routine.

He has his pick of casual hookups passing through Dadelus-Kaku Station. His one brush with danger of any kind—the only bright spot in his otherwise boring life—is Cruz Arcadio, a dark-haired, hard-bodied engineer whose physical prowess hints he’s something much more.

When a terrorist abducts Tover, hurling him into a world of torture, exploitation and betrayal, it’s with shattering disbelief that he realizes his kidnapper is none other than Cruz. As Tover struggles to find the courage to escape his bondage, he begins to understand the only way to free his body, his mind—and his heart—is to trust the one man who showed him that everything about his once-perfect life was a lie.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of extreme violence and assault. It also contains graphic sexual depictions. It also has a lot of birds. And pirate movies from the future. And romance.

REVIEW:

I love that we are getting more m/m sci-fi and fantasy for reviews! Since those are the genres I’ve been reading since I was a really little guy who couldn’t even see over the librarian’s desk.

This book introduces us to a possible future universe, where Harmony Corporation is a bigger player than some governments. Tover Duke is an Intuitive Navigator, one of only 48 in the known universe. He is able to move things like cargo, ships and supplies with his mind. Kind of like those weird Guild Navigators in Dune, except Tover does his work from a fixed location on a space station, and he certainly doesn’t look like those strange creatures in Dune. Tover is tall, blond, muscular and well groomed. He is also treated like the pinnacle of society. A huge salary, a penthouse suite and lots of sycophants.

Tover has been having lots of sex with a tall dark and handsome engineer named Cruz who passes through the station on a regular basis. Homosexuality is legal, but frowned on by the Harmony Corporation. Gays and Lesbians are routinely fired for their orientation, and although the Corporation knows about Tover’s indiscretions, they look away because of what he is, and how rare his talent is. Tover has been watching for Cruz to come through the station again, but he hasn’t been through in quite some time.

On Tover’s birthday, the corporation throws him a huge birthday party, complete with his very own parade.  At the end of the parade, Tover prepares to speak.  Suddenly he is grabbed from behind and has a gun pointed to his head. When he turns, it is Cruz!

Cruz begs Tover to save him and without a second thought Tover transports them both far across space to a station which is known to be a den of thieves and space pirates. Because Tover used his own body’s resources to transport them, he is too weak to stand when they arrive. Before he knows it Cruz has SOLD him to the pirates and left!

This is just the beginning of the nightmare that is Tover’s new reality. His one hope…to get even with that bastard Cruz before he dies.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters and storyline were believable and the story was fast paced. I recommend the book to anyone who is a sci-fi fan. I’ll be looking forward to other works by this author.

RATING: 

BUY LINKS: 

Samhain Publishing

Amazon

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