|
Unclaimed
Nathalie Gray
Red Sage Publishing
December 2007
ISBN#: 9781603101400
Sci-Fi
Please visit Nathalie Gray's
website |
Synopsis:
Deep space is no place to spend the holiday season, but
freighter captain Maxine Fields has no choice. She has to make a special
delivery, the kind that pays as much for her silent discretion as for her
on-time delivery record.
So with nobody but the penguins on her favorite flannel pajamas to keep
her company, she sets a course, pours a mug of eggnog, and contemplates
what’s left of the ragged tinsel tree taped to her console.
If only Santa would leave a little gift under that tree. No, a big gift --
a tall, rugged, ready-for-action gift. One who would heat up the holiday
and show her just what kind of stocking stuffer a naughty girl should get.
When Max responds to a distress beacon, she gets her holiday wish, and
then some. Edmond Cabanesty might just be at the top of Santa’s naughty
list. With growing dread, she reads the crimes etched into the side of his
exile pod. Defection. Genocide. Murder.
Oh, Santa, whatever will you deliver next...?
|
|
While not quite lost in
space, at the beginning of Nathalie Gray's Unclaimed Maxine Fields is
not having the best Christmas Eve on a ship all alone. As she is traveling
along to deliver her slightly illegal cargo of medical supplies, she comes
upon a floating capsule containing the hibernating criminal, Edmond
Cabanesty. Against her better judgment, Max takes the capsule on board, and
somehow spends the remainder of the flight trying to avoid Eddy in more ways
than just the physical.
Max and Eddy are very
strong- willed characters: both trying hard to maintain their physical and
emotional distance from the other. Ms. Gray shows great sensitivity in
writing the love scenes between Max and Eddy, what could be shown as an
anonymous encounter becomes something much deeper between two people needing
more than just physical contact. This is not to discount the passionate
intensity of the love scenes; at times the heat generated between the
characters is combustible. As the story progresses Max and Eddy (and the
reader) come to discover they need each other in many different ways, the
least of which is merely physical. This progression of the characters is
what makes Unclaimed an enjoyable story to read. I highly recommend
it, and not just as a holiday tale.
|