Reviewed by Tammy
TITLE: Escape 
SERIES: Planet Alpha, #12
AUTHOR: Mark Blackstone
PUBLISHER: Evernight Publishing
LENGTH: 74 Pages
RELEASE DATE: January 4, 2016
BLURB:
When the notorious Alphan fighter pilot, Avollo, is captured in battle, he’s expecting to be transferred to a military prison, so when he arrives at a civilian Xyran prison on a remote jungle moon, he knows he’s in trouble. He’s surrounded by his enemies, and he knows his only chance of survival is escape—and quickly. Geth and Nix are Xyran bondmates who’ve been waiting years to get their revenge on the fighter pilot who cost Geth his military career. When they arrange to have Avollo transferred to their prison, they think up a fitting scheme to put their Alphan enemy to death. Without the vast reaches of space between them, the Xyrans and the Alphan come face to face for the first time—and they realize their war is just beginning. A war of lust and love. A war of denied desires.
REVIEW:
I’ve read and for the most part loved every book in the Planet Alpha series but I must say I wasn’t exactly enamoured with Mark’s instalment.
Escape, starts out with Avollo, the Alphan warrior in chains being taken to a Xyran prison. When they get to the prison Avollo is stripped of his pilot’s uniform and made to walk naked through the common area to get his prison clothes and be assigned a cell. Although everyone stares no-one says a word to him until a human attempts to get him to let him suck him and sleep in his cell. This is when a huge Xyran prisoner Devek makes it clear that the human is his ‘mouse’, a sex slave. While Devek is getting a blowjob from his ‘mouse’ Avollo is shown to his cell, within minutes of him being in his cell Avollo has to go to the arena for the ‘oran zai’. The oran zai is a fight club that all prisoners take part in.
The Commandant Geth, a former Xyran warrior and his Lieutenant/Bondmate Nix, a former slave, are immediately in lust with Avollo. On the one hand they want to see Avollo dead because if it wasn’t for him Geth wouldn’t be blind in one eye and he wouldn’t be the commandant of a jungle prison! On the other hand, they are both so wildly attracted to him they end up having the most explosive orgasms while watching Avollo fight in the arena.
After the fight Avollo is patched up then there is a ‘shengi’ invasion. Shengi are jungle creatures that constantly try to invade the prison so they can eat the prisoners. It’s during the shengi invasion that Avollo escapes but Geth and Nix see him and decide to follow him as the shengi have completely overrun the prison. They spend the night chasing Avollo through the jungle but he evades them by running through the river. They all meet up at a clearing, have a huge fight with each other then they have to fight some shengi. After the shengi are defeated they immediately start going at it like bunnies! After a night filled with hot sex they hear a rescue ship and realise they can’t let them find them because two Xyrans and an Alphan would never be accepted so they find a shuttle at the prison and escape.
What made this book quite aggravating to read was the fact that the characters never developed and everything happened within three days. No matter which of the characters POV they always thought about themselves in the third party. I really wanted to like Escape but the whole story was very rushed and woefully underdeveloped.
RATING: 
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