Zakota

Star Guardians, Book 5

By: Ruby Lionsdrake

Narrated by: Vivienne Leheny

Katie Saunders isn’t used to sitting on her butt, but she’s been stuck doing exactly that as the Star Guardians fly all over the galaxy, trying to get her and the other kidnapped women back home. Now, it looks like they have to engage in a battle against evil aliens before making the final flight to Earth. Since they’ve captured an extra ship and are short on pilots, Katie wants to help.

She flew jets during her time in the navy, and she’s been training on the spaceship’s flight simulator, so she knows she can be useful. Because the captain won’t listen to her, she turns her focus onto the ship’s helm officer, Zakota. He’s an odd man who apparently believes he’s a shaman, but maybe she can convince him she can fly.

Wheeling and dealing with Zakota reveals a couple of unexpected things. First off, he’s super hot under that uniform, and second, he’s not quite as kooky as she thought. As a fellow pilot, he gets her, far better than she expected anyone out here would, and he’s quick to see her worth in the cockpit.

The problem? There’s not time for them to get to know each other better or much of anything else. They’re headed into a battle against a superior foe with superior numbers, and the odds are against them making it out alive.

The Star Guardians series:

1. Orion
2. Treyjon
3. Sagitta
4. Hierax
5. Zakota

©2017, 2018 Ruby Lionsdrake (P)2018 Ruby Lionsdrake

Turned out to be a great series

I wasn’t real crazy about the first book of the series so I wasn’t sure if I would continue with it. But I was familiar with another series by the author under this nom de plume that I really liked. So I went ahead and listened to book 2 and it just got better and better from there. The women in the series had to go a long way to get to where they wanted to be and the men supported them all the way. I liked the balance between adventure and romance. Ms. Leheny always does an awesome job.

So fun!

I loved this series(although I wish it were longer)! The epilogue had me laughing out loud and tied off the series wonderfully!

Fun epilogue :P

Ruby, loved the epilogue and how it made it possible for more stories.
I do wish it had been fleshed out more though.
good wrap up for the 5 books and made me want more of the Star Guardians stories and continued inserts of current characters into future books :)

Sad

This book was very good but I'm so sorry that it is the last in the series may I suggest a spin off

Loved it

I thoroughly enjoyed this whole series and like how this book wrapped things up. Sage is still my favorite though.

Marvelous last installment!!

I loved this whole series. Best thing about this book is that it brings everything to a satisfactory conclusion. The author then takes us into an extended epilogue where we learn more about the fates of each of our couples.

The battle scenes are engrossing and very much in keeping with the adventurous spirit of the previous installments in the series.

If you enjoy science fiction and Romance together, you won’t want to miss a single one!

Excellent ending to a series

I have listen to all books in this series. The story line is excellent. The best part is the diversity of the heroines. They are smart, funny, and heroic. The epilogue for this book ties it all together. Well done Ms. Lionsdrake!

Fun space opera, average romance

I feel like this series should have had more sci-fi than beefcake cover art because the space opera arc was better than the romances. These last two books felt like the author wrote Sulu and Chekov’s HEAs. This one in particular features Zakota, who’s been the class clown, thrown down for comedic relief in previous books; he’s a purveyor of magical trinkets, like a crystal loving granola, and I don’t feel like this story rehabilitated him to someone I could take seriously… or at least find sexy. There was the usual, and sadly cookie cutter banter where Zakota and Katie exchange euphemisms involving their shared interest (flying here, so talk of grabbing his joystick, etc … as opposed to Hierax’s math/engineering euphemisms or Treyjon’s animal training euphemisms). And, there was a single get-together at the very end, just before the series epilogue. Frankly, I think I’d have enjoyed the series just as much without the romance, and strictly as space opera (like those written under her Lyndsay Buroker pen name).

The space opera gave good Star Wars, Star Trek, Wing Commander, Independence Day homage. As with many things in this series, the story is very surface level, with mostly redshirt death (there’s one named crew member that dies, but he’s barely more than a cameo character). Once again, there’s a scarcity of world building, setting descriptions or even character descriptions (at the end, Zakota is described as being similar to an Islander in appearance and Katie has dark hair, but aside from that, and the ubiquitous reference to his washboard abs, you’ll have to make up his eye color or her body shape). This is ultimately a popcorn, non-gory listen. If this ever gets put into an omnibus, I would say it’s worth the credit. Otherwise, these are fun as sale purchases,

I did enjoy the 1.5 hr epilogue, which spent time with all the couples and provided an ending different from many other space opera romance series.