So let’s talk about the novel: it is about a pretty, bratty girl who doesn't want help from anyone (with people inexplicably trying to help her anyway), and has a whole lot of luck on her side to balance out a lot of bad decisions. Those bad decisions are all allegedly justified due to a bad home life. Basically, our heroine is pretty unlikeable. She reminds me of Rachel Morgan from Kim Harrison's the Hollows series.
Let’s meet our 21-year-old heroine: first, she is Dr. Lyssandra Peate: a Deep Space Explorer (DSE) licensed to excavate and sell planets to the highest bidder. She is the daughter of renowned (but unpublished) scientist, Dr. Sostas Peate, who disappeared while studying Leveman’s Vortex when Lyssa was four years old. Secondly, she is Razia, the only female Bounty Hunter on the longest probation period. Her main motivation is to become Razia and delete Lyssa.
Helping out our girl is Lyssa/Razia’s personified inner monologue, Vel. Vel is her 16-year-old brother who she had not previously met until he is forced on her as a DSE intern. He is written like he should be an older mentor, not a younger mentee. The kid is always seeing right through her "tough” exterior and giving pretty good advice based on his observations. For example, it is Vel who notices Lyssa/Razia’s friend is in love with her. It’s not much of an observation, because it is straightforward that this person and Lyssa/Razia had some kind of romantic relationship previously, but it shows how even the obvious needs to be pointed out to Lyssa/Razia by Vel.
The novel is written in third person limited and vacillates between praising and berating Lyssa/Razia: complimenting her ability to find bounties, but saying she'd have an easier time if she wasn’t so unwilling to accept help. I haven’t read that many books written in third person limited that cut off the narrator, and when that happens it’s very jarring and disruptive.
The dialog and word choice of the book make me think that the author has a video in her head of what scenes look like, which she committed to paper. That would work well for a screenplay but in a novel it makes it challenging to get a full picture of what is happening and who is present. The author elects to WRITE IN ALL CAPS instead of describing the sound or tone of voice of the person speaking. It reminds me of sitting in a chat room back when AOL was a thing.
So what can S. Usher Evans do to improve on future books in the Lyssa/Razia series? I suggest introducing fewer concepts in each book. Piracy and Bounty Hunting would’ve been enough without mentioning Leveman’s Vortex and throwing all her family issues into the story. It’s a series, isn’t it? Pace yourself, Ms. Evans. This is salvageable.
Visit S. Usher Evans' blog for more information about the author and how to purchase her book(s).
