Riding the Odds
By: Lynda K. Scott
Publisher: Entangled: Select Otherworld
Release Date: Feb. 3, 2015
Genre: Sci-Fi Romance
Rating:
Spaceship captain Tara Rowan has her secrets. One is her Rider, Zie. Zie is an organic symbiote—like a living tattoo—that enhances Tara’s physical abilities, including superhuman strength and reflexes. The other is the past she’s tried so hard to leave behind her. But it’s not until oh-so-sexy Trace Munroe decides to blackmail Tara that she realizes her secrets aren’t so secret after all…
Trace is a Holy Knight who does everything by the book. Desperate to find a missing princess, he’ll do whatever it takes to rescue her and bring her kidnappers to justice. Including blackmail. Yet something about the feisty ship captain draws Trace in and stirs his desire—even if she is a wanted criminal. Because the last thing he needs is any complications…especially when he has his own secrets to hide.
This was a great sci-fi romance involving an uptight hero and an independent woman. Tara comes across Trace while waiting for a cargo to transport. He claims to be a writer looking to shadow her for a novel he’s working on. However, he’s really the prince and a former Holy Knight. Tara’s not just a transporter either. She’s a legend, she’s one of the few kids who survived a death sentence on a deadly planet.
Tara was the perfect heroine. She was strong, resourceful, loyal, and could take care of herself. So when Trace comes along pushing his way into her life, she pushes right back. She stands up for those who need help and she’s compassionate to those less fortunate than she. She’ll put her life on the line if it means saving someone she loves.
“Trust didn’t come easy, not since the day the scout, Larsen, had found them on Eridani. Not since she’d learned that instead of rescue, she, Jackson, and Drummer would be executed for surviving when they had no right to survive.”
Tara’s never alone though. She has Zie, an alien life form that’s pretty much a parasite. Zie is a Rider. Rider’s need hosts to latch onto. If the host dies, the Rider dies. Riders take on a shape and look like a living tattoo that shimmer and move over their host. Zie was a fascinating creature that took the shape of a dragon on Tara. She was always moving around Tara’s body and talking telepathically to Tara. When Tara needed an extra boost from Zie, Zie would move to Tara’s face and mask her to give her special powers. Zie was probably the best thing in the whole story. She was so unique and fascinating.
“The little Rider swirled over her face and around her head in gleeful anticipation, and lashed her long serpentine tail. This, of course, fanned an itchy, prickly sensation between Tara’s shoulder blades, a spot Tara could never reach.”
The romance between Trace and Tara is slow building. At first Trace is just using Tara because he knows who she really is and he knows that she can help him find his sister who was kidnapped. So he pretends to be interested in her in order to try and get close to her, when that doesn’t work, he pushes his way into her life and pretty much blackmails her into helping him. However, the romance was a complicated one. More so than just two characters from opposite sides coming together. Nope, over a span of time Trace’s memory gets wiped causing him to “reboot” his memory without any of the attached emotions. So he wakes up knowing Tara, knowing they’ve been intimate, but feels nothing for her or the thought of having a relationship with her. That definitely added a twist to the story.
“If there’d been anything between them, any soft emotion, he’d lost it along with his memory of it. And he’d lost any right to reclaim it.
So yeah, you get some awesome sci-fi in this one. Between the Riders, Trace’s drug, Trace’s secret of being a Prince, Tara’s secret of being “The Dragon”, and her and Trace’s adventure of finding his kidnapped sister…. there was never a dull moment. This is a full story, there are no cliff-hangers. However, if the author does decide to turn this into a trilogy or series by writing about the other two who are Tara’s childhood friends and nest-mates, I will definitely be tuning in for them.
“For the first time, Trace wondered what it would be like to have a Rider, to have a companion who would never leave, never abandon its host.
The idea sparked a coil of loneliness inside him.”
If you could have a Rider, would you get one?
I’m so glad you enjoyed Riding The Odds. Thank you for the lovely review!
I love it when the guy is the control freak and the girl is the independent one. This sounds fun — great review 🙂
Thanks so much for stopping by! Jen @ YA Romantics
Thanks, Jen. This was definitely one of those books that surprised me with its awesomeness. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in, it could have gone horribly wrong but the author did an amazing job with balancing everything.