Shades of Dark

The Dock Five Universe Series, Book 2

By: Linnea Sinclair

Narrated by: Dina Pearlman

Can love alone save the day? Award-winning author Linnea Sinclair returns with a vibrant interstellar thriller of romance and adventure in which two lovers are tested in the crucible of deep space.

Before her court-martial, Captain Chasidah Chaz Bergren was the pride of the Sixth Fleet. Now she's a fugitive from the justice of a corrupt Empire. Along with her lover, the former monk, mercenary, and telepath Gabriel Ross Sullivan, Chaz hoped to leave the past light-years behind - until the news of her brother Thad's arrest and upcoming execution for treason. It's a ploy by Sully's cousin Hayden Burke to force them out of hiding, and it works.

With a killer targeting human females and a renegade gen lab breeding jukor war machines, Chaz and Sully already had their hands full of treachery, betrayal - not to mention each other. Throw in Chaz's Imperial ex-husband, Admiral Philip Guthrie, and a Kyi-Ragkiril mentor out to seduce Sully, and not just loyalties but lives are at stake. For when Sully makes a fateful choice, changing their relationship forever, Chaz must also choose between what duty demands and what her heart tells her she must do.

©2008 Linnea Sinclair (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Mixes space opera with romance ... the smashing climax will please everyone.” ( Publishers Weekly)

Shades of Dark

I absolutally loved it. Lots of action, spunky characters, loved the way it ended. I'd listen to it again.

i wonder if evil masterminds read romance novels

“it’s been in the planning stages for a very long time.”
“to what end?”
“[he] wants to destroy what little faith people have left in the empire. [no matter who it is, he] still has to deal with an emperor, by lineage, sitting on the throne. destroying the emperor won’t work; but destroying the [institution] will. [he] wants the empire in an uproar, locked down under martial law, and he wants to be the one calling the shots when that happens. he will gut [the military], he will gut the [“entitlements”]. he’s almost created a civil war with [one group of people]. [another incident alienated another group of people]. [he] wants to knock it all down and then build it all up in his image.”
“but [the savages]?”
“mass hysteria. slaughter of innocents.”

this is my second listen-through, and passages seem so much more relevant today than they did a handful of years ago.

i like this narrator. she does a great job distinguishing the different voices for the different characters. there are different levels of narrator:
you have the basic reader--like the gal who reads the Twilight books--who doesn't change her voice for anything.
you have the narrator--kinda like Tessa Dare, (The Duchess Deal, et. al.)--who has different character voices per book in a series, but the voices begin to bleed together when characters cross over.
and you have the narrator who is more actor than narrator--like Tavia Gilbert (Night Huntress series) or Angela Dawe (Mackenzies / Highland Pleasures series)--who has different voices no matter how many characters there are in a series, and makes a series pretty interesting. dina pearlman fits into this third category, for me.

i like linnea sinclair's stories. i haven't spent a lot of time in the space-based realm of novel, so i do not know if she is repetitive amongst her peers, but the stories are rather fresh to me. (i especially like Accidental Goddess, so if you haven't read / listened to that one, i suggest giving it a go.)

GREAT Series - Book 2

This is book two that continues the story told in book one of Sully and Chas. This series really is incredibly well written, with a lot of action, solid sci fi, and just the right amount of romance. So many authors get romantic sci fi wrong - this series really is the standard for the genre.

The narration was fine - I just wish she had not done accents (Sully had something that was a cross between British, SA, and Australian - really weird and off-putting, especially when no one else had one like it).

Disappointed

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

The original book, and story had a great scifi theme. Some sexual connotation, but still adventure. In this book, the author spent most of the time on a sexual theme. I had a hard time enjoying a scifi book, when it kept jumping into a romance novel.