Out of Darkness

Dark Planet Warriors, Book 4

By: Anna Carven

Narrated by: Jillian Macie

The Kordolians are loose on the asteroid mining station Fortuna Tau, and first-rank mechanic Jia Morgan has gotten caught up in the thick of things. Under the careful watch of these steely-eyed silver warriors, Jia and her team have been tasked with repairing the hull of the Kordolians' Alpha-Class battle cruiser, Silence.

The problem is, their alien technology is far, far beyond anything she's seen before, and whatever they try to weld to Silence's black hull just won't stick.

When Jia goes in search of a tool that might actually penetrate the warship's impossibly strong Callidum exterior, she finds herself being aided by a most unlikely source. The hard-faced warrior who's decided to accompany her walks on silent feet and carries a big, big gun. He's equal parts scary and attractive, in an otherworldly sort of way.

But although Jia finds this Kordolian fascinating, she's not even going to try and get close to him, because, well, he's a freaking Kordolian, and Kordolians aren't exactly known throughout the Nine Galaxies for being nice and warm and fuzzy.

Instead, she's going to do her job and fix their warship, because that's the only way these intimidating warriors are ever going to leave Fortuna Tau. Hopefully, they won't break anything, or anyone, on the way out.

Oh, and there's also the small matter of these flesh-eating insect-aliens called Xargek. Apparently, they bite.

Contains mature themes.

©2016 Anna Carven (P)2018 Tantor

Relief

After reading book 3 of the series I was a little concerned that it was developing a style that I didn’t care for. But this book 4 was as awesome as books one and two. This is a perfect balance between adventure and romance with some saucy sex scenes toss in. The only reason I gave four stars for the narration was because I really preferred the way the series started out with both a female and male narrator.

Quite the adventure

Good audiobook, I am following the chronological order of events so I am skipping around in books. The plot is intense and there is always something going on never a dull moment. This one dealt with a female mechanic and one of the elite warriors.

4

Only thing is the switch of Rykles name to Rickle. That through me off. Plus the narrator was good but if you start your books with Two readers it should be that way throughout the series. If not the price of the book should reflect it. Also authors who are really about their craft should know and recognize that it’s more than white women on earth. More diversity would be nice. Thank you

Five stars from me

Worth staying up all night to finish. Loved this two characters together. Just wish the story can continue on a little bit longer. Don’t want it to end. This is one of my best audible series. I’m starting on the next one right away.

Review Out of Darkness

This is a cute story of Abbey’s coffee buddy, Gia. Gia went back to work from her coffee break and found the General’s second in command, Cal, to be fascinating. Naturally, Gia was in Cal’s sights. During their romance a lot happened, which included fighting for survival on the ship. Good book.

Jia gets a story!

This story picks up from book 1, Dark Planet Warriors, and features Abbey’s friend Jia.
General Akkadian leaves the First Division on Fortuna Tau to hunt the Xargek and protect the humans, with Kalan Dakarian in charge.
Jia Morgan is a Mech Tech who works on repairs to Silence before the General leaves with Abbey who has been gravely injured.
Jia and Kalan feel a recognition when he supervises repairs; and connect more while fighting Xargek; trying to save Fortuna Tau; and escaping to Earth.
It’s great to have this story tying in two characters from book 1.
Macie does a good job of narration for the book and series.
Recommend

Hooked on this series!

This third audiobook in this series was really enjoyed by myself. In this book we have Gia, Abby’s mechanic friend we met in book one and Kallen, the Cordolian warrior General Tarak left in charge of clearing Zarjeks from Fotruna Tau station. They meet when Gia needs a drill bit to work on The Cordolian ship. Unfortunately, there are Zarjeks all over the station and Kallen begins to feel protective and possessive of Gia. When a plot to set off a bomb at the nuclear core is discovered, they must make an escape to save themselves and get to Earth. Narration was good, but I missed having a strong male voice in this audiobook.

I really liked this one.

Kalan and Jia were an interesting matchup. With Jia being the type to not hold things back, a little more out going than expected, and Kalan being the consummate warrior the two make a very entertaining pair. I really liked that the level of excitement and suspense was well balanced with the level of heat and romance offered with the story. I also really liked reading what went on back on Fortuna Tau with the humans and Kordolians while Tarak and Abbey were on Kythia. I can't wait for the next book to see what happens next. Well done to the author and the narrator for doing such a great job on this one.

Great book. one of my favorite authors. So hot!

hot and sexy with intriguing story and fun action too. Cannot get enough of these characters or awesome story. Thank you.

Alpha alien action / romance amidst a bug hunt

Update from august 2021:
Books 1-4 are now available for 1 credit in an omnibus. Get that instead.

Original review: Overall, a sexy, fun alien romance involving Jia and Cal

The series timelines gets a bit choppy starting here. Books 1-3 proceed in order. From this book 4, for the next few, the timeline runs concurrent to book 1. So, in book 1, we see the arrival of the Kordolian warriors at a space station and the pairing of General Arkkadian and human Abby. Here, we see the pairing of Callan and Jia.

Jia is a mech tech, a grease monkey in overalls who nonetheless catches the attention of Callan as he and his Kordolian brothers work to wipe out an infestation of Xargek, an insect-like species that has found its way into the space station where the Kordolians have docked for repairs. What follows is trademark Kordolian-human romance during an Alien style movie. Luckily, the horror aspects never get too scary.

This is an alien romance series, so you can’t get too demanding on realism or logic. It is a bit implausible how fast this couple draw together... and how much they think of sex when covered in Xargek guts and fighting for their lives.

Having read the 8 book series, this is one of the three I really liked. This is due to the good action-romance ratio. Also, I like one romance book per couple. I don’t generally care for romances that span over several books as the plots get more and more contrived to keep the magic alive.

I preferred the dual narration from book 1, but alas, the dual narrating only appears when Tarak and Abby’s story is at play (books 1,3, & 8 in Audible). I swear the narrator changed the pronunciation of Rykel from “rye-kell” to “rickle” (as in tickle, fickle, ickle- yuck). Her pauses also seem off at times, and I tend to bump up the speed to 1.3x to match the action.

If you liked book 1, but didn’t care for the politician & press romance of book 2, or the Tarak/Abby pregnancy in book 3, then I suggest you will like this book and book 5 (Forged in Shadows) for the action/romance ratio. You may want to pass on book 6 (Infinite Embrace, a more cerebral, angsty romance), book 7 (Electric Heart, a really slow build with no nooky until 5 hours in) and book 8 (the end to the Tarak/Abby trilogy involving endless worry about Abby’s failing health....snooze).