I believe this is my 4th spfbo 2018 book.

I'm working real hard to cut down on my TBR list, so between books that have been in my list for a very long time, free author copies, and my KU backlog, I do try to set aside some space to put in an spfbo book here and there.

I decided that this book was one of the next on my list and it was surely a very surprising read. Very different from a lot of the other books that have signed up for the contest.

This book settles in a Sci-Fi space opera type setting with a comic twist: military officer Nia Rae was in an epic battle against a terrorist fanatic who wants the Time Orb for an ulterior evil purpose. To save the world, she shoots it, but it has an unwanted after-effect. As the cameras are rolling, Nia's clothes are ripped apart as a piece of the orb jams itself into her chest and she faints.

When she wakes up a few days later in a military hospital, her moment of peace with love interest, a nerdy scientist dude called Jaxon is ruined because video footage of her uniform malfunction is running on the screens pretty much everywhere. If being berated for ruining Time-Space travel seemingly for good and getting badly injured weren't bad enough, her politically well connected parents are going to bear the brunt of this gaffe.

After feeling somewhat recovered, Nia enters her superior's office to expect being demoted to a cook, or worse. However, she is forced to choose two unpleasant options: quit her military career for good and find some other profession, or take a sabbatical year to recover from her serious injuries and return to the force to perform exclusively administrative tasks. She vents her frustrations at Jaxon, who leaves to perform an important ultra secret mission, whereas Nia quits her military career.

Nia's father is a senator, and a really awesome guy. Usually absent from the family space ship due to his job, he treats Nia with utter kindness and it's always fun to see the father-daughter relationship. Her mother and pretentious younger sister on the other hand, well, they still have hopes that Nia marries some trust fund baby and stops causing them trouble... And her mother's failed attempt to organize a courtship with a politically powerful drug addict moves the story at light speed forward to the best part: Nia's secret origins and a strange guy called Domino!

Now, the first half of this book seems to have a hard time choosing either being a campy comedy or a self-loathing whinefest. Nia can sometimes be annoying, and the first half of the book seriously lacked the worldbuilding that immerses you. Things start to get interesting when we discover that Nia (and pretty much everyone else) for some unexplained reason has computer chips injected into their bodies that change their hair and eye color to a permanent family color emblem. Nia thinks she looks out of place with pink hair and eyes, and wonders what she really looks like...

I think the real highlight of the second half of the book are the organic space ships, colloquially called "Organics". Domino is the eccentric captain of the Bayleaf, an extremely rare mother ship that has the potential to birth other organic ships at will, and the entire walls are plant based that can change shape depending on its needs. Bayleaf and Domino are mentally connected, which causes a lot of curious situations in the story. To make things weirder, Domino is not just openly bisexual, he likes to work as a dancer/entertainer/prostitute and parades all over the place with a fake smile, shirtless, and charming to the point of obnoxiousness. Nia couldn't stand the guy at first until she saw the kindness beneath the shallow facade and among other things going on in the plot, wonders if she is in love with him or Jaxon.

The best part of the book? Definitely the organic ships who form unwielding bonds with their pilots. Apparently once a ship "chooses" you, you're pretty much stuck living on the ship and loving it forever. I just found the concept to be so interesting with endless possibilities for the plot.

The story ends with a really surprising revelation (I can't spoil it). Apparently the story continues with a sequel. I believe it hasn't been released yet, but I am definitely interested in reading it sometime to see where the plot goes. ( )