Review: The Warrior’s Mate by Susan Trombley

“I guess, even with authors you love you can’t like everything.”
~ Under the Covers

This is a series that needs to be read in order. So if you haven’t read this yet, go back and grab book 1 The Scorpion’s Mate and give it a try! It’s a fantastic book, with a deliciously scary sexy alien hero.

If you cast your mind back to book 1 of this series, The Scorpion’s Mate, then Theresa and Tirel are familiar characters. Theresa was one of the women who was saved alongside the heroine…but opted to go home to earth. Tirel was the commander of the ship they were on when they were rescued. In the book there was a tiny hint that something was happening or had happened between them. However, it was never clear if this was going to be addressed…well, it’s definitely addressed in this book!

Theresa has been home 5 years and she regrets every minute. She should have stayed. Tirel has been on her mind every since her return and all she longs to do is find him and explore the connection they have. So, she is determined to do exactly that. She’ll find a way back and go to him. However, she isn’t the only one who needs to explore the bond between them. Tirel has been taken and using Theresa’s bond may be the only way to find him.

Just to get this point out the way early on, I feel like this book, and maybe this series, needs to have a really good and thorough edit. Not just for small things like typos and grammatical edits, but for streamlining and polishing the story. Sometimes the storytelling could be a little cumbersome and clumsy. Which, is a shame as I love Trombley’s imagination and her general vision for this series, however, the execution doesn’t always live up to that promise.

Now the ‘technical bits’ are out of the way, lets move on to the story itself. I feel like this is a book in two halves: Before the Rescue and After the Rescue. Each half had it’s own good points and bad points and over all I did enjoy the story. However, this certainly wasn’t the best in this series – I still love The Scorpion’s Mate the most!

But, it wasn’t just my personal preference that has made this book my least favourite. The pace of this book was like being on the London tube. It would go really fast and then come to a sudden stop and wait around for a bit. This was especially true for the first part of the book, Before the Rescue, in comparison with the second half, After the Rescue. In the After the Rescue section we go to Tirel’s home world and are introduced to his family. Although I found the different culture interesting, it was also a little boring as we spent most of the time stewing in Tirel’s self loathing.

Which brings us to why I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. We spent too much time with miscommunication or no communication between Theresa and Tirel, which caused them both problems. It was a case of a simple conversation solving a number of issues. I understood that Tirel has the equivalent of PTSD and it’s easier to say ‘have a conversation’ but far harder in practice. But, it got very frustrating when you were reading. Story wise, it did make this book drag.

I did like this book and I will definitely continue to read this series, however, I did find this book a little disappointing. However, Susan Trombley does have a fantastic imagination and I love the general direction this series is going, as well as the interesting new aliens she introduces. I guess, even with authors you love you can’t like everything.

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[about-author author=”Susan Trombley”]

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