Gladiator
Galactic Gladiators #1
Anna Hackett
Publisher: Self-published
Publication date: Oct. 23, 2016
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Rating:
Fighting for love, honor, and freedom on the galaxy’s lawless outer rim…
When Earth space marine Harper Adams finds herself abducted by alien slavers off a space station, her life turns into a battle for survival. Dumped into an arena on a desert planet on the outer rim, she finds herself face to face with a big, tattooed alien gladiator…the champion of the Kor Magna Arena.
A former prince abandoned to the arena as a teen, Raiden Tiago has long ago earned his freedom. Now he rules the arena, but he doesn’t fight for the glory, but instead for his own dark purpose—revenge against the Thraxian aliens who destroyed his planet. Then his existence is rocked by one small, fierce female fighter from an unknown planet called Earth.
Harper is determined to find a way home, but when she spots her best friend in the arena—a slave of the evil Thraxian aliens—she’ll do anything to save her friend…even join forces with the tough, alpha male who sets her body on fire. But as Harper and Raiden step foot onto the blood-soaked sands of the arena, Harper worries that Raiden has his own dangerous agenda…
My thoughts…
This was a new take on aliens that I’ve never read before. Usually it’s some sort of breeding program because females are rare on their planet. But rather than that typical story line, this story focuses on an arena where creatures throughout the galaxy fight for entertainment purposes. Romance isn’t something sought after in this story, it’s just something that happens due to proximity.
One thing that I liked about this story is that there isn’t a lot of back and forth with Harper. She’s a strong female character who is dead set on getting back to earth, but once she realizes that that just isn’t possible in her lifetime, she accepts it and changes her focus to being a gladiator in the arena and helping the other life forms who may have been illegally trafficked. The fact that she didn’t constantly battle against her fate, or the people around her was a nice change of pace, and allowed the story to flow at a good pace.
I will say that I felt like the romance moved a bit too quickly for the amount of time she was there. With that said, we are talking about intergalactic gladiators, so sometimes you just need to let go of normal expectations and enjoy the ride.
