Captured and delivered to a mining planet populated by young slaves who lack a spoken language or knowledge of any other kind of life, Aliana vows to escape. She soon finds herself mated to the young leader of this slave group. Despite not sharing a language, the two begin to care for each other. Months pass, and when finally Aliana is able to escape, she is distraught when her lover dies in the escape... or so she thinks. At this point we're done with the first part of a six part book.

In the second part, Aliana and her lover are reunited, but by this point several years have passed and they have to get to know each other again, this time in a very different context. It doesn't help matters that Aliana is the daughter of the head of the Intergalactic Council and her lover is the leader of a band of pirates.

I liked this story I think because it was a nice mix of grounded characters and kind of cheesy scenarios. I also liked that the tone was really sweet (not cavity-inducing, but nice). The villain is pretty easy to identify, and I was annoyed that young-Aliana couldn't see though her, but with age comes wisdom, right?

All in all, a good story. I'm glad I finally dragged it out if my TBR pile. ( )

ZB7