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A review by greystory
The New Guy by V.C. Lancaster
adventurous
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I enjoyed this book for a lot of the same reasons as the first one, although I knocked it down a star due to some frustrations I'll get into.
Ro's appearance - black scales with pink eyes (and pink in other places) reminds me a lot of Xoknith from The Quarrymaster by Amanda Milo, which I found really intriguing. I was happy to see that combo in another alien romance.
The communication difficulties - almost entirely from Ro's end - were needlessly frustrating. While there's some language barrier in that Maggie does not know Balin and Ro is new to English, it stems more from stubbornness and refusal to talk. There may be cultural differences and this is the driving reason behind Ro's reluctance to admit anything the doesn't want Maggie to know, but it seems like those are differences that Ro OR Maggie could have taken steps to bridge the gap. Maggie kind of does by asking Kez but frankly as a DETI employee, I found her lack of knowledge of some cultural stuff disappointing and it felt like she should have been able to figure out more things on her own or with other people.
I found Maggie in general to be a tad frustrating. Not enough for me to be overly annoyed but I was a bit put off by some of her actions and behavior.
While these were frustrating, I do have to admit that the author Lancaster was good at stringing you along with the sense of mystery and wanting to know more about what's really going on. It definitely kept me reading.
As I mentioned in my review of book 1, the ET Guy, VC Lancaster also has a bad habit of writing a lot of filler detail in addition to the interesting detail. I don't really need every step of someone getting ready spelled out for me. I don't need an entire chapter of someone's inner thoughts when they aren't building character or plot or adding anything to the story. It felt like the 300+ page book could have been shorter because of that - and that's a weird thing for me to say. I'm usually always wishing for more! But when I say that, I don't mean mindless filler, I mean relevant story. The good shit.
Ro's appearance - black scales with pink eyes (and pink in other places) reminds me a lot of Xoknith from The Quarrymaster by Amanda Milo, which I found really intriguing. I was happy to see that combo in another alien romance.
The communication difficulties - almost entirely from Ro's end - were needlessly frustrating. While there's some language barrier in that Maggie does not know Balin and Ro is new to English, it stems more from stubbornness and refusal to talk. There may be cultural differences and this is the driving reason behind Ro's reluctance to admit anything the doesn't want Maggie to know, but it seems like those are differences that Ro OR Maggie could have taken steps to bridge the gap. Maggie kind of does by asking Kez but frankly as a DETI employee, I found her lack of knowledge of some cultural stuff disappointing and it felt like she should have been able to figure out more things on her own or with other people.
I found Maggie in general to be a tad frustrating. Not enough for me to be overly annoyed but I was a bit put off by some of her actions and behavior.
While these were frustrating, I do have to admit that the author Lancaster was good at stringing you along with the sense of mystery and wanting to know more about what's really going on. It definitely kept me reading.
As I mentioned in my review of book 1, the ET Guy, VC Lancaster also has a bad habit of writing a lot of filler detail in addition to the interesting detail. I don't really need every step of someone getting ready spelled out for me. I don't need an entire chapter of someone's inner thoughts when they aren't building character or plot or adding anything to the story. It felt like the 300+ page book could have been shorter because of that - and that's a weird thing for me to say. I'm usually always wishing for more! But when I say that, I don't mean mindless filler, I mean relevant story. The good shit.