This is the second book in the “New Horizons” series and I haven’t read the first. What I gather so far is that Jordan Kellow is the captain of 'Persephone', which seems to be a scout ship for the mother ship, 'Posterus'. She’s made a connection with Lieutenant Alison Ash but sabotage and an explosion have left Ash severely burnt and the ship fairly damaged. Sarka, a genetically enhanced human, seems to be the cause of the sabotage and he also happens to be Jordan’s father.

What I enjoyed about the story is that it is fast-paced, easy to read and filled with action and adventure. There are a number of places where the climax of an action sequence is simply cut and then the story continues a day later with no more than a retrospective reference being made. This gave it quite a movie-like feel to it and it’s not something I minded at all. Jordan (the book is in first person from Jordan’s point of view) is an unusual captain in that she comes across as being all over the place. She’s disorganised, not always confident and not much of a disciplinarian. I actually liked this about her and perhaps it wouldn’t be so obvious if we weren’t privy to her thoughts.

I struggled with maintaining my suspension of disbelief around the plausibility of the technology in quite a few places. I didn’t really like that Jordan and Ash had very little engagement with each other until around 70% and even then there seemed to be an odd distance between them, which may or may not be because I didn’t read the first instalment.

Overall it’s not a bad read if your preference is for action/adventure and I’d probably read the third, if only to find out where the story goes.

Book received from Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review.

2.5 Stars. I tried but this series is just not for me. There are so few lesfic sci-fi books out there that I really was hoping to enjoy this, but I’m giving up. This is the second book in the New Horizons series. While I liked some of the storyline in the first book, the ending really let me down. It was this odd ending that you could not tell if it was the end (there was no mention this was a series back then) or if it was a cliffhanger. The problem with this book was I didn’t like any of the storyline.

This book picks up where the first ended but never really explains what exactly happened. The huge event was glossed over and you are just reading about the characters dealing with the aftermath. The ships are off course and they decide the smaller ships will look for inhabitable planets while the main ship is being fixed. Captain Jordan’s ship soon finds a new planet and she leads an expedition to explore it. Can this planet be the home they are all looking for or will it be more danger than it’s worth?

I can’t remember how the first book was, but this whole book was in Jordan’s POV. That was a big issue. I did not realize how wooden and boring her character was before you are stuck in her head all the time. That’s a big problem; it seemed all the characters lost any likeability from the first book and became these cardboard cutouts. I didn’t like anybody, not even the secondary characters.

What I also didn’t like was this book was all about the characters making really, really, stupid decisions then bad things happen to them. Over and over, that was the whole story. Jordan is the Captain and she has to be the worse captain I have ever read. She’s stupid, can’t even handle basic 2+2=4 math, can’t fight, and doesn’t know how to lead a crew. I read lesfic fantasy, paranormal and sci-fi because I want to see badass women in their element. This was a book about a woman in over her head and faking it badly.

Like the first I can’t say this book has a romance. There is a little time spent together towards the end so a below average sex scene or two can be added. I have to be honest I was scanning a bit at the point because I just didn’t care.

If you are wondering there will be a book 3. Once again, this book ended on another extremely annoying cliffhanger. When I finished reading I realized this book was nothing but filler. We are basically in the same sort of ending as the first book. There was no real forward movement in this story. What bothers me is this book is again on the shorter side. Not as short as the first book, but this should have been changed into a two book series instead of three or four short ones.

If you could not tell from all my complaints, I will not be reading the next book. I’m done here; I just do not click at all with these books. If you enjoyed the first, you might like this. But there is no way I can recommend this series.