You guys, I had such a hard time finding a good book to read this past week.
All I had time for was a novella, and all I wanted was a decent romance with complete sentences and a plot. You’d think those requirements would be easy enough to meet, but for some reason, every book I tried annoyed me. After four or five DNF’s I thankfully remembered that Carysa Locke’s Telepathic Space Pirates series has a whole sub-series of spin-off novellas.
Pirate Festival was a huge relief. After all those duds, this one was well-written and fun, with everything I look for in a space opera romance novella, except maybe a good sex scene.
But, plot over porn, I say!
I know, I know. Boo me all you want. I’m not against spice, it just isn’t that hot to me if there’s no build up.
Pirate Festival has plenty of plot. It follows biokinetic medic Nayla as she’s called to an isolated planet of Killer telepaths to treat Ari, a young man who has fallen mysteriously ill. It’s a dangerous mission. But the planet of the killers is completely different than Nayla expected, and the killers’ real motive for bringing her to their homeland is nothing like what she’d assumed.
If you’ve read Pirate Nemesis, or any of the other books in the Telepathic Space Pirates series, you’ll be as intrigued as I am by the Killers, a subset of telepaths whose special talent for murder keeps them isolated from the rest of the space pirate community. Experiencing their world for the first time through Nayla’s eyes was a treat.
I also enjoyed that most of the chapters ended on a twist or surprise.
Since it’s a romance, though, you won’t be surprised to find out that Nayla’s patient is super hot, super powerful, and totally into her. Despite the attraction, their romance moves slowly. Ari is a Killer telepath, and killers have a hard time being intimate without accidentally unaliving their partners.
In fact, Ari fell into the coma when he was “training” for the yearly festival where killers might indulge in a night of “celebration.” Wink wink. Nudge nudge.
Fun concept, right? But they never get to the actual night of the festival. The story is more about unravelling the mystery of why the Killers brought Nayla into their secretive community. There’s also a slightly rushed but still fun coming-of-age arc showing how Nayla comes into her own as a medic and as a biokinetic as she begins to grasp the full extent of what her powers can do and makes choices about what she’s willing to do with her newfound abilities.
As much as I’m all for plot over spice, I do have to say I was disappointed not to see Nayla and Ari get together by the end. They don’t even kiss.
The author has promised us another Nayla story, though, so hopefully we’ll get to see this super-likeable couple enjoy the festival together in the next book, and hopefully Ari can repress his killer instincts when they do .
Overall, I definitely recommend Pirate Festival to anyone who likes their sci-fi romance with a strong plot and a focus on interesting world-building. I’m definitely putting the rest of Carysa Locke’s Swag Stories on my TBR!
