Ravings of the Semi-Lucid

Title: Star King
Author: Susan Grant
Genre: science fiction romance
Grade: B
Reason for Reading: It was a pick from librarything, which typically suggests books I will either like or hate with a passion.

Synopsis from Amazon: Air Force Lieutenant Jasmine Boswell was flying her fighter jet over Saudi's no-fly
zone when the missile coming out of nowhere hits her plane. She bails out of her
disabled jet, but lands on an alien-looking desert with spaceships flying overhead.
She also encounters an injured Romlijhian B'Kah, whose starfighter crashed killing
his brother. Only his vision of the angel Jas saves his life.
Two decades later (in earth time), Jas has divorced her spouse, has two young adult
children, and struggles with a mid-life crisis. Due to Rom's injuries and his failure
to save his people on that fatal day, years ago, he no longer leads. Instead he is
a minor smuggler, estranged from his own family. Rom and his people make first contact
with earthlings. Will Rom and Jas find each other to follow up on that dream and
if they do will each take the necessary steps to embrace their love?
My Thoughts: I enjoyed this and will definitely be reading the other books set in this universe. Susan Grant manages to convey a depth of feeling in her writing, and her books contain an element of humor that really works for me. It's also obvious that Grant knows what she's talking about regarding being in the Air Force. I'm not sure if she actually was, though I think I read that this is, in fact, true.

The characters here are for the most part good. I liked that Jasmine is a little older than your average romance heroine, and for the most part she acts like it. Her experiences as a soldier come in handy, and I was glad that she was given the chance to shine in this way.

Rom, too, was a great hero. At least, I thought he was pretty sexy in a Han Solo sort of way. I liked that the anger he felt at his assumption that Jas had betrayed him lasts for only a short while and he soon becomes fascinated with the woman that she is, not the one his mind has made him out to be.

As for the secondary characters, they were less impressive, though my favorite by far is Rom's bodyguard, a great big hulking berserker named, of all things, Muffin.

I also really liked that the sequel baiting wasn't terribly obvious. There aren't really any characters who show up in the book screaming, "Look, look, I'm hot and tortured. My book is next! Buy it now!"
Also, I liked the definite empowering of women message that was rather subtly drawn in the book. If it weren't 1:00 in the morning, I might want to analyze it in more detail, but suffice to say it was nice to see that Rom worshipped and adored Jas, and she in turn got to reclaim her sexuality, which is a theme I love.

Now for the bad. First, as I mentioned in my last post, sometimes the characters did veer a bit into wish fulfillment territory. When Jas thinks that it's incredible that Rom loves her stretch marks, my eyes rolled. No doubt in 20 years I will totally swoon over that scene myself, but I'm too young to appreciate it now.

Also, the villain? Well, TV tropes would call him a knight templar. At one point, he even gives out an evil laugh. (Note that tvtropes.org is a huge time suck, so I highly encourage you go go exploring.)

There were also some problems with pacing. The beginning was lovely, the middle drrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggged, and the end finally picked up speed. I would have liked for some of those issues to have been ironed out a bit better.

Overall, this was fun. It's not rocket science (heh heh, rocket science? In a sci-fi romance? Aren't I clever?) but it is a lot of fun. Recommended if you can look over the pacing and the villain.