Jesikah Sundin

I really liked this, which sort of surprised me as it has a lot of things I’m usually not into—like instant attraction between the couple, and a “mate bond” that heightens their attraction, and simple misunderstandings keeping the couple apart (e.g., “does he love me, or is it just the mate bond”). The story follows two rival thieves who are forced to work together after they try to steal from a witch and are cursed. They also have to deal with an indentured servant–type situation. While they are often in danger and sometimes injured, they also get through each incident and find safe places to hide out, so the story wasn’t stressful.

The author does “swoon” really well—the hero is always smirking and whispering things in the heroine’s ear or leaning in and then not kissing her and making her heart flutter. He’s also sort of relatable and cute, versus being dark/mysterious/dangerous. The swooning and the cuteness were what really sucked me in.… (mehr)

The magic, tech, writing & narration in this book raised my review to ⭐⭐⭐⭐.
Meanwhile, the plot and characters brought it down to ⭐⭐⭐⭐.

I was expecting steampunk, but this was more technology-focused. The story is one we all know (Sleeping Beauty) with a slightly different interpretation, more of a dream state than actually sleeping.

Complete story–No cliffhanger. Thank you!

THE GOODS
Worldbuilding: pagan inspiration
The use of nanotech
Narration: adored the Scots accent for Philip
Writing: some amazing turns of phrase
Male MC: Much deeper than Æroreh. Nice backstory and arc.

COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER
Plot (classic Sleeping Beauty plot with dreams in place of full sleep)
Female MC. I must say… I really did NOT like Æroreh. Sniveling nitwit comes to mind. I know, it’s hard to have a strong FMC who falls victim to the female villain from such a young age. And Sundin used that to her advantage in the story by making her representative of the idea that women have been belittled, told to sit down and look pretty for a long, long time. However, it just doesn’t endear me to the character.

Full review here: https://susanstradiotto.com/book-review-aeroreh/… (mehr)

When you think of scifi, you usually imagine something that happens in space, far away from Earth. However, this needn’t be the case. You can write really great scifi without leaving Earth, and that’s exactly what Jesikah Sundin did with her Biodome Chronicles.

If you’ve watched Stephen King’s ‘Under the Dome’, you get the idea: there’s a community living under a dome — albeit voluntarily — that is, the first generation did. Their descendants haven’t been given a choice, but they seem content enough.

However, something is about to change: Leaf and his sister Willow discover a few things that make them distrust almost everybody. Their encounter with Outsider Fillian sets in motion a chain of events they can’t control.

We have here some great characters, notably Fillian and Willow, and I can’t wait to find out how the story goes on.

As is wont in a good scifi story, there’s a lot of technology involved, none of which seems impossible, even with today’s standards. Experiencing some of it through the eyes of Leaf and Willow makes it seem quite alien and outlandish, though.

I have to admit that I quite like the idea of living in unpolluted surroundings, where there is no technology that could do harm to nature. That said, I guess there’d be numerous things I’d miss, so I’d probably not be as content as the idea suggests, and living in a confined space, however intact it might be, probably would drive me mad after a while.

Sunil Patel’s narration was wonderful, he brought the story to life, and I listened every free minute I had. Although there isn’t exactly a cliffhanger, the ending left me wanting for more. I’m very curious about the future developments, and I hope ‘my’ lead characters will be well.

So, if all scifi you know is set in space, you should absolutely try this story, just to give you an idea that there’s more than space battles to a good scifi story. For everybody else: you don’t need to be a geek, or even understand technology to thoroughly enjoy this story.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Jesikah Sundin. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.… (mehr)