Reviewed by Dan

TITLE:    Dark Space

SERIES:   Dark Space #1

AUTHOR:     Lisa Henry

PUBLISHER:  Loose Id, LLC

LENGTH:     229 Pages

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.

Note: This book contains reference to past rape, violence.

REVIEW:

I saw book two in this series pop up on our available to review book list and after reading the blurb I realized it was something I’d really like. Only problem, I had never read book one! So I requested both and this is the review on Dark Space. Book two, Darker Space will be reviewed one week from today. If I enjoy it anywhere near as much as I did this current book, I’ll be very happy.

Dark Space is a classic science fiction/space opera type story. A human hero was captured by the evil alien race that almost destroyed the planet Earth.   Four years have passed and all consider Cameron Rushton to be a casualty of war.

When the story begins we are introduced to a young man named Brady Garrett. Garrett is a drafted soldier forced to man a space station which is part of a group of space stations designed to protect humanity and the planet from further alien incursion. Garrett is an enlisted man, and has only been on the station for three of his required ten years of service. He is from a family of refugees, a group of people who had nothing and weren’t accepted anywhere. I couldn’t help think of them as similar to the Syrians plucked from today’s headlines, even though this book was written in 2012.

Garrett has never had anything. His father works in the mines, his mother is dead, and his stepmother ran away after giving birth to his little sister. Even though Garrett’s dad is terminally ill, the military doesn’t care what happens to his little sister if something happens to the dad. There is no leaving the service short of your ten years…except in a body bag.  Brady Garrett’s character is written very well.  He has a huge amount of internalized anger, which pops to the surface quite often, leading him to end up in trouble with the officers on a regular basis.

Garrett has been training as a medic, and he is in the perfect spot to help when Cameron Rushton suddenly appears in some sort of alien suspended animation gizmo. But how do they get him out, and when they do, why is Garrett so important to his continued health?

One final note, I love the covers on this book, as well as book two.  Both covers actually look like what I imagined the characters to look like!  I don’t know about everyone else, but even with e-books I find the cover to be important in what I choose to read.  I’m so sick of looking at the same models over and over and over and over on different books, or even worse, the same COVER on different books.  That isn’t the case here.  Brady looks like a angst ridden nineteen year old.  Great job!

I really enjoyed this book. The story and the characters were well written and believable. There is some violence, and references to prior non-consensual sex. The references are to prior events though and are written in such a way that they shouldn’t cause problems for folks with triggers. I recommend this book, and I’m off to read the next one!

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

Loose Id LLC  

Amazon

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