Auxem
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚🖤💙
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘
World building: 🌏🌍
Character development: ☺️😮😍
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration
The Hero: Arnon – he is the crown prince of the Auxem race. His society had lost all of their females in a plague and since then only males have been born. They figured out that the culprit was a specific gene and they needed females without that gene to mate with in order to produce girl children. He and some of the scientists snuck onto various planets to get samples of their blood and they found that there were human women without that gene. While on Earth, Arnon found a woman he wanted.
The heroine: Jayne – one night as she was sleeping, an angel came into her bedroom, kissed her and took her blood. She thought she was dreaming and didn’t think much of it. She recently graduated college with her masters degree and needed to find a job. However, she had to go with her mother to a banquet for the Auxem. Her mother owned an intergalactic dating agency, which she definitely didn’t want to do. She went to the banquet and found out that her angel was the Prince of the Auxem.
The Story: Jayne agreed to work with her mother and supervise the women from Earth that would be subjects on the starship for the Auxem breeding program. Jayne and Arnon were attracted to each other from the start, but since he was the crown prince, he had to marry whomever his father picked for him and he knew he couldn’t be with Jayne.
Though Jayne had seen Arnon’s wings and he didn’t wipe her mind like his father told him to do, he was worried since he didn’t think human women would want to mate with them and bear their children if they knew the pain and trauma associated with flying. So the whole thing about his wings is a big secret.
This book is told in dual points of view via dual narration. The narration was done by Logan McAllister and Faith Clark, neither of whom I liked very much. I have listened to Logan McAllister before and enjoyed his narration, but he was very monotone in this one. Faith Clark had a very youthful sounding voice, a bit too youthful for my liking, though I have books 1-5 and the books have different narrators, so I wanted to listen to this entire book so I know what is going on in this world.
I am not sure if it was the narration or the story or a combination of the two, but this one wasn’t my cup of tea and is definitely not something I would read again, though the story did get much better as it went along. I am hoping the rest of the series is better and the narrators are more to my liking. I know neither of these narrators are used again in the series, so I will give the next book a try.
Ayrie
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚🖤💙
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙
World building: 🌏🌍🌎
Character development: ☺️😮😍😀🥰
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration
The Hero: Ayrie – he is the second born to the royal family (his nickname is Spare). He grew up watching how much his father suffered after losing their mother in the plague where all the Auxem females died, and he was determined to never fall in love. So when his people finally found that human females didn’t carry the gene that only produced male offspring he didn’t plan on getting a mate.
The heroine: Elle – She comes from the districts (slums) and tricked her way into being one of the human women in the trial to verify Earth women and Auxem were compatible. So when she sees Ayrie staring at her for hours at the event where the women were introduced to the Auxem males, they connected enough to try seeing each other. She thinks Ayrie married her out of pity and she married him to get away from her terrible situation and abusive boyfriend on Earth.
The Story: Elle wants Ayrie to love her, but knows he wont since they have a marriage of convenience. Ayrie didn’t want to fall in love, but he had attraction for Elle and thought he could help her get unlimited enjoyment without feeling anything. It wasn’t long before both of them figured they made a mistake. Ayrie acted like a jerk to Elle and neither of them knew where to go from there.
This was told via dual points of view and dual narration. The narrators in this book were better than in the first book. In the first book the female narrator especially had a very annoying male voice and sounded way to young. This one was narrated by Kelly Morgan and Paul Brion who both do a good job.
The story on this one was much better from the start than the first book. Elle was a bit broken from her experience with her old boyfriend and had a bit of a chip on her shoulder about where she came from. She was a bit jealous of Jayne from the first book, because she sees Jayne as coming from a perfect life and is happy with her new mate and children. When Elle and Ayrie crash land onto a planet that is mostly water, things get interesting.
The world building is ok, but there are some big holes. Like how everyone speaks the same language and understands each other. They talk about food processing machines, but don’t say much more about them like how they work. Elle is a star ship mechanic, and knows all about the Auxem ship and can easily get a job on Vandua as a star ship mechanic. It seems to me that starships from different planets might be entirely different from each other. Though despite those issues, the story was much better than the first.
Anders
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚🖤💙
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: ☺️😮😍
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration
The Hero: Anders – Third son of the king, the middle child. Anders tends to fall in love with unavailable females. He sees this as safe, since he is afraid of bond rejection syndrome, where two people are bonded but not in love with each other. He recently talked his father into buying a bunch of new fighter ships to protect their starship and all the people on it. Though at the launch party he got drunk and decided to fly one and crashed it. He knew he couldn’t mess up again and needed to clean up his act.
The heroine: Gwen – She was a pilot and she came along with the Auxem as part of the workforce. She was newly married and her husband was a flight mechanic. She was partnered with Anders because two pilots were needed to fly a scout ship and Anders was banned from flying the fighters.
The Story: Anders was attracted to Gwen. Just one more example of his feelings for unavailable women. He was used to her always talking about her husband, but lately she hadn’t mentioned him at all and there was a sadness in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. He finds out that her husband left her for another woman and they are now divorced.
This book was narrated by Connor Brown and Piper Fairweather who are the best narrators in this series so far. Piper has a soft but sort of deep, yet feminine voice which is pleasant to listen to. Though her voice doesn’t change much when she is doing a male voice. Connor has an emotive voice and is also very enjoyable to listen to.
I like that Anders and Gwen are best friends and co-workers before anything happens. There was also a very good storyline about space pirates taking over their ship. Though there were still a few plot holes and these two both wavered too long about how they felt for each other, but overall this was a pretty good book. Though I am getting a bit tired of the wings being secret and the fact that they are so painful, I am hoping someone can fix that issue in the next book.
Allex
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚🖤💙
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: ☺️😮😍
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration
The Hero: Allex -he is one of the king of Auxem’s five sons. He was only two when his mother and all the Auxem women died. He doesn’t have any memories of his mother or of his father when he was a good father. His father changed after his mother died and became cold and unfeeling. So Allex has a lot of resentment toward the King. He never speaks to his father, and he became a healer to help with things like what killed his mother.
The heroine: Priya – she signed up to be a bride of the Auxem, but was rejected because she had the gene that was known to only produce boy children and they needed females to repopulate their planet. After some thugs accosted her and stole her last credits, she hides in an Auxem shuttle. The shuttle went to the Auxem star ship and she ended up stowing away on the star ship when it leaves before she could get on a shuttle back to Earth, Stowing away is a crime so she has to stay hidden.
The Story: Allex is a people-pleaser and a responsible healer. He grew up on the star ship and sometimes needs to be alone, so one night he goes down the hidden passageways he and his brothers used to play in when they were children. When the ship is overrun with pirates, he can’t make it to the panic room with the rest of the royal family, so he stays in the hidden hallways. He also wants to find a way to fight the pirates from the inside.
It isn’t long before Allex finds Priya who had been hiding for months since the ship left Earth’s upper atmosphere. Allex is immediately attracted to Priya, it didn’t hurt that she was naked when he first came upon her. Though when Allex tells her he isn’t sure if he will turn her in when they got rid of the pirates, she is determined to get away before that happens, no matter how attractive he is.
This was told via dual points of view and dual narration. The narrators in this book were the same two narrators that did the second book, Ayrie, Kelly Morgan and Paul Brion. They did a good job. Though I liked the narrators of the last book a bit better.
This book’s timeline overlapped with the timeline and events in the previous book and I thought a bit too much time was spent going over the same events that were in the last book, Anders. Though the storyline in this one, where Priya is a stowaway was a good one. Allex was a bit too much of a Yes man (doormat) at times, and he was afraid to stand up to people, especially his father. Though I did like the story.
Avren
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚🖤💙
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌎
Character development: ☺️😮😍
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration
The Hero: Avren – He is the fourth son of the King of Auxem and is a genetic engineer. He wants to fix the Auxem people who have wings that fold into pockets in their skin so they can’t be seen when they are in the pockets. The Auxem people love to fly but taking out their wings and putting them away is very painful. More so when it first happens as a child hits puberty, or like in the case of his brother Allex, whose wing pockets once got infected from not taking his wings out often enough. Now he goes through excruciating pain every time. Avren thinks the genetics can be fixed but needs the help of his ex-girlfriend Vanessa.
The heroine: Vanessa – She is the leading geneticist in the Galaxy. The one person who may be able to figure out how to fix the Auxem people so they can open and retract their wings without pain. She had been hurt when Avren dumped her back in college, she was determined to say no to whatever he asked her.
The Story: Avren was hurt by Vanessa in the past when she chose her work over him, and he ended the relationship and is determined to not fall for her again. However, he He had an idea on what they could do via genetic manipulation and knew if anyone could help his race, it was her. Vanessa always loved her work and a challenge, so she agrees.
The story was good and there was some mystery and suspense added in. Though it wasn’t great and I just wasn’t feeling the chemistry between these two despite their yearning for each other all the time. Maybe I was just tired of this series and ready to start something new.
Like Anders his book was narrated by Connor Brown and Piper Fairweather who I enjoyed listening to. They did a great job on both of the books in this series that they narrated. I liked that no two books in a row were narrated by the same narrators. This book did wrap up the series in a nice way!