Did not know that this was the second book in a series, so I read the first book after this one. Honestly, I thought it was pretty good - I don’t normally read the “sci-fi esque” books but this one sounded interesting. Ada - a savvy expert thief - and Rian - a government operative - have found themselves in a gala. Throughout the book, they play this cat and mouse game - Rian thinks Ada’s going to steal something but he doesn’t know what. I love the banter between these two.

Ada has turned over the intelligence she collected in the first book, but has no intention of working with the rebel group again, especially when they try to get out of paying her for it, and leave her to pay for her own repairs to her ship. But when they offer her an undercover mission to attend a gala where Rian will be working, she changes her mind. Rian is only working the gala because the items up for auction are the kind of things that might interest Ada and flush her out. Hoping to catch her in the act and pin her with a punishable crime, Rian has no idea that Ada’s real mission is to convince him to join the rebels. And the rebels have no idea that Ada’s decided that kidnapping Rian is the most efficient means to an end. How to Steal the Galaxy continues the story that began in Full speed to a Crash Landing.

How to Steal a Galaxy is the second novella in the Chaotic Orbits series. I enjoyed this fun story, even though it wasn't as suspenseful as the first story. Once again Ada and Rian are brought together on opposite sides, but with that sizzle still between them. Their banter is humorous, but they are keeping secrets and have very different purposes. As in the first book, Ada has more than one thing going on and it takes until the end of the book to sort out what her plans really are. Ada is such a great character. She is smart, adventurous and works for what she thinks is right, although she functions in a morally grey area. She is breaking the law, but has her own standards and values. Although she and Rian believe in the same things as far as earth is concerned, they are working for people and organizations that are doing things in different ways. We get to see a lot more of the greed and corruption of big business in this one, that makes Ada angry. I am enjoying this series and am looking forward to the final book in the trilogy. Once again Dara Rosenberg and David Bendena narrate the audiobook and I enjoyed their performance. The voices they give to Ada and Rian was perfect and have me feeling like I am right there with them.

This is book two in the Chaotic Orbits series. This book focuses on an undercover mission and more on the romance that began in book one.

This is such a fun series! I absolutely love the space setting and the humor. The characters are also fun and the author manages to pack so much into these novellas. I can’t wait to continue the series.

This audiobook narrators did a great job of portraying the characters!

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Beth Revis, and Dreamscape for providing this free ARC. This is my honest review. This published on December 3rd.

This is a sequel full speed to a crash landing. We follow the same characters just a little time after we left them. Ada cannot be found at a fancy gala on one of the Earth ready to pull a giant heist. Ryan’s not far behind her. While the rest of the crew is not with him, he has a new team and his goal is to get back what Ada took and prevent her from stealing anything else. The fate of the original earth is on the line. Ada is snarky. She was snarky in the first book, but she’s more snarky in book too. This is the type of snarky that is fun. She feels like she could be your best friend. Her chemistry with the Ryan character is spot on and I love that. This book is not a romance that has romantic elements. there is no spice in this book just steam, but it’s just right to let us in to the finale. Book 3 needs to get here faster.

4.5 Stars Rounded Up

Loved this. So excited to continue the series. This was a great second book and I loved it more than the first. The first book starts off a bit slow and slightly confusing with a lot of clarification in the last 5%. How to Steal a Galaxy slowly laid out the details. I loved the museum as a background and the running commentary on greed, corruption, capitalism, commercialization, and society. While the author frames a lot of these issues in a light-hearted way the impact is still there. I love Ada and how her mind works. She is always 20 steps ahead and poor Rian is just trying to keep up. Now the long wait until the third and final book comes out.

The audiobook is great. Love the narrators and how they brought the story to life.

This series is so fun and I'm loving it. This book continues the interactions between our MCs and builds out the world/universe they live in further, while setting up the third book. The banter is on point, the characters are competent and smart and it's such a good time. The audio is a fantastic way to engage with this series, too. Bring on the next book!

This was fine I guess, not much story and the characters fell a bit flat for me. Not sure this needs to be a trilogy as there doesn’t feel like enough story for 3 books.

How to Steal a Galaxy leaves off a couple weeks after Ada ran off with the plans for the nanobot climate cleaner. Ada believes that her job with the rebels is done until they bring her another job at a charity gala where Rian has volunteered his services in hopes of catching Ada. However, neither Rian nor the rebels know Ada's true intentions.

Although I did not enjoy this novella as much as Full Speed to a Crash Landing, I still enjoyed the banter between Ada and Rian. The events in this book left me with several questions on what is going to happen in the finale and the twist at the end, I found both hilarious and surprising. I am excited to read the final novella in the series when it comes out in 2025.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity to review How to Steal a Galaxy. All thought and opinions are my own.

Fantastic sequel read by a great narrator. Morally grey protagonist and a space heist, what's not to love! Can't wait for the next instalment!

This was such a fun, lighthearted read. I love the idea of interconnected novellas because they’re the perfect length for a working mom. I don’t feel that the story was at all inhibited by the length, and the plot was quick and engaging. I’m definitely going to be following the rest of Ada’s shenanigans!

First, if I were a booktuber and did Top 10 videos of the year, this audiobook would be on that list of Top 10 Audiobooks. Dara Rosenberg proves the difference between a narrator and a *voice actor*. I truly cannot overstate how WELL this was performed. I never once felt like a book was being read to me, instead, I felt like I was in a character's head and following them along through the story.

The plot overall is also extremely well done. In the first entry into this series, the book-specific plot was excellent and the beginnings of the series plot were laid out. In this entry, again the book-specific plot was exceptional but the growth of the series plot was really what kept me hooked.

You know when you are reading a book and it is first person, but yet the character never thinks about their devious plans so it shocks the reader when it all unfolds? It feels disingenuous - if we were IN THEIR HEAD, how did we not see this coming? This is not the case here. Our main character has thoughts and inner monologues about the big plan. Enough that we are kept intrigued, but not so much that anything is spoiled. We are hooked, wanting more. It strikes a balance so well that everything feels authentic, not as if the character keeps secrets from the reader.

If you are looking for a short but highly engaging read to help you hit your reading goals, or if you need a palette cleanser, or if you simply enjoy a delightfully entertaining sci-fi, I cannot recommend How to Steal a Galaxy (or really, the entire Chaotic Orbits series) enough. I will also recommend that you choose the audiobook experience, I do not think you will be disappointed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for an advanced listener copy of this audiobook. All opinions are my own and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book really hates Elon Musk. If I could give it more than five stars, I would. Just as hilarious, witty, and clever as the first book!

3.5 stars
I didn’t realise this was a second book in a series with the way there was so much telling not showing of the current Earth. I only found out when I read these reviews! So having not read the first one, I might not have appreciated the main character as much, she had a lot of inner monologue with her sarcasm which was fine at first but then it started to grind on me a bit.
This is a heist with a humorous tone. I didn’t feel particularly attached to either the plot or the characters so it was an okay read but I wished there was a bit more. By the time I decided this book might not be for me I was already 89% done on the audiobook, that is just testament to the narrator for making me want to listen to despite not really engaging with the book itself. I ended up finishing it but if the book was longer than a novella then I probably wouldn’t have.

Thanks to NETGALLEY and publisher for an ALC!

4 Stars!

Ada is hands down one of my newest favorite book female characters. I cannot wait for the third and final novella to be released.

When crazy money doesn’t get Ada to take a job but the prospect of seeing Rian does make her take the job you know sparks are going to fly. She shows up as a guest at a high society charity auction and Rian just knows she is there to steal something. But keeping constant attention on her still doesn’t stop her from getting the job done nor doing a few extra things that will show up in the next book. The chemistry between the two of them hopefully will have a great payoff in the next book.

Yikes. She's so very "not like other girls". It got old fast and was very obnoxious to listen to. I never would have imagined that a sci-fi heist story could be boring, but here we are. The best part was the cover.

This is one of my favorite novella series!

Beth Revis brings us another fun, fast-paced adventure with Ada back at the center of the action. This time, she’s caught up in a high-stakes auction on a ridiculously rich planet, with her old frenemy (and maybe something more), Rian, tailing her every move. The banter between these two is top-notch, full of sass, tension, and chemistry that’ll keep you hooked.

The story is packed with clever twists, heists, and a deeper dive into the politics of human-settled space, all while keeping things entertaining and sharp. Ada’s smart, snarky narration makes her such a blast to follow, and the mix of humor, action, and a bit of romance hits just right. If you’re into space adventures with strong characters and witty back-and-forths, you’re going to love this one.

The clever and sarcastic Ada is back, taking on a job to deal with the release of the clean-up technology on Earth.

The rebel group that employed Ada to steal the revolutionary technology (in book one) to remediate the environmental damage on Earth come back to her, as they need her to do more for them at an auction. They offer her increasingly large sums of money, but it's the knowledge that Rian will be present at the auction for a charity gala at a museum that seals the deal for her.

A glammed up Ada wanders around the museum exhibits on the extremely wealthy planet, hobnobbing with fabulously rich people, while Rian tails her, intent on catching her steal whatever she's there for. And there are a LOT of intriguing and unique objects on display, but despite his certainty that she's after something, she continues to confound his expectations, teasing and bantering with him.

She does get to meet the beyond stupidly wealthy head of the company whose tech is intended to fix Earth, but Ada knows what the utterly self-absorbed man's real intentions are for the technology.

There is so much chemistry between Ada and Rian, who, circle each other throughout this fun, fast-moving and often very funny novella. Even though the two beautiful people at the centre of this story are attracted to one another, there are some serious differences between them: he stands for the rule of law, and does not quite understand how her experiences on Earth have shaped her, her feelings and her chosen profession.

She is a complicated person, who firmly stands in the grey; she may not generally do anything altruistic without getting paid, and she always seems to have plans within plans, and we're never entirely sure whether what she says about herself or her intentions, are true. This proves to be the case when a calamity ensues at the auction, and Ada does something quite contrary to what she would normally do that puts her and her plans at great risk, but it also is something that could be seen as "good".

I liked how author Beth Revis gave us more about the political situation in human settled space, and how no matter how far out we expand into the galaxy, greed and corporate self-interest are still very much at play, with someone always eager to profit off someone else's catastrophe.

The ending was again left open, with a race to Earth, which is where book three will likely pick up.

I thoroughly enjoyed this instalment, which I enjoyed in text and audio; Ada is a hoot, and I love her narration, which is smart and amusing, even while she is skewering the people around her. Her attitude comes through beautifully in the narration of voice actor Dara Rosenberg, who captures the balance between audacious, slightly sad, the knowledge that she's smarter than everyone around her and delighted by it, disgusted, and very occasionally self-deprecating. Voice actor David Bendena as Rian doesn't have as big a presence this time in the audiobook as in book one, but he still treads the line between bemused, frustrated and confused when we switch to Rian's PoV.

I am anxiously awaiting book three, and the wrap-up to this fun series.

Thank you to DAW and to Dreamscape Media for these ARCs in exchange for my review.

I am loving this series! A sci-fi cat and mouse game that keeps you questioning who's the cat and who's the mouse. Plus a dash of billionaire hate and a quick make out session. This installment kept me guessing up until the very end and I can't wait for the conclusion!

I would like to thank the publisher for giving me an audio-arc in exchange for an honest review through NetGalley.

So this was book two in the series and I have a lot that I have to say. Now just have to figure out how to say it without spoiling anything from book one.

Okay. This takes place shortly after the events in book one which, by the way, were intense. Just like book one, this also has a heist. We see Ada and Rian again. And the tension between the two is just perfection. I need a spicy spicy scene with them in book three. Just throwing that out there.

Anywho, what I loved most about book one -- Ada's personality, the tension between her and Rian, the snark, the sass, the brilliant writing -- all comes back for book two and I really appreciated that. The banter is some of my favorite, and honestly I need more of it, more of them, and more of this storyline. WHat I liked about this installment vs the first was the expansion of worldbuilding in a way that didn't feel clunky. Hearing the political side of things and why Ada is doing what she's doing really brought everything into focus, and I appreciated how Beth Revis handled this expansion.

So far, this series has been amazing and I honestly cannot wait for book three to release. I love the humor and romance, I love the setting, and I just adore Ada and Rian and want to see them just go at it.

Actual Rating: 4.5 stars