u/Rauxon

Being the author of a sci-fi romance, this one immediately caught my attention.

Tldr; go read it, it's an extremely good story and I'm looking forward to more.

I'm going to do a spoiler free review then dive into a few things that involve spoilers.

 

Overall I'd rate it 4.5/5 or 9/10, whichever you prefer. I have a few small reasons I'm not rating it an absolute 10 but please don't let that dissuade anyone from reading it, none of my gripes are close to a reason to avoid this great story.

The character interactions in my opinion were... idk, just a little clunky at some parts in the beginning, but it quickly smoothed out. I ended up devouring the first half of the book in like a day and a half, and by the time I was in act 3, I was heavily invested. Even nearing the end of Act 1, I was so caught up in the building tension between the two of them that when we got a little bit of barrier breakthrough, I was like "Finally!"

That security guard needed to mind his business.

 

It has three open door sex scenes and they are exceptionally written. Pretty much every intimate interaction or even the flirting or banter is coded toward soft femdom, and it works. I'm not talking BDSM, latex, and chains (not knocking it), I’m talking a 6’3” green alien mommy grabbing your chin and purring “Behave,” into your ear.

 

A common trope in romance is the Act 3 breakup and all I'll say with this without going into spoilers is I don't even know if I'd want to call it a third act breakup. It was handled very, very well and I found myself really feeling for the characters during these chapters. There's a ton of great scenes and interactions in this story, but the two that really stood out to me are:

1. Davik discovering the meaning of ilsuir'a. I felt like I saw this coming and, while I was close, I still was punched pretty hard in the heart. Davik's reaction was perfectly written. Also just the word/phrase ilsuir'a is beautiful, I'm a Mass Effect nerd and Tali simp so it gave me major keelah se'lai vibes.
2. Fia's mental tirade in Chapter 42 after hearing the news followed by "persuade me" was fuckin' chef's kiss, I was grinning like an idiot.

Other things this story does really well:

I don't know if Onyx is a military veteran but it feels like it just from the way veterans are portrayed in this story. Drey struggling when meeting Fia felt real, and Carissa's reaction to Davik in Act 3 when she starts throwing stuff at him, giving him insight to where Fia's head is at, how long it takes to adjust, that shit felt lived-in.

Alright, as to why I docked a few points on the overall score, I have 5 small-ish reasons, 3 of which are spoiler-free.

1. I think the biggest thing this story could have benefited from in my opinion was a line editor. I didn't spot any grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors, but there was a general minor clunkiness to the flow of the writing that I recognize because it's pretty damn close to how I used to write. I won't dive too deep into what I mean by this because I don't think it's something a new reader should subconsciously be watching out for as they go through it, but if the author would like to chat with me about it, I'm more than happy to elaborate.
2. A developmental editor also could've helped out. Both of these things combined make me just a little curious as to the author's writing, development, and editing process with beta readers, all that jazz. There were no glaring plot holes, nothing bad like that, but Act 3 did feel a little rushed to me.
3. There’s a nice bonus chapter available if you sign up for the newsletter. I rarely sign up for newsletters but I was invested in these characters enough that I really wanted to see it, but I felt like I had to jump through 1-2 too many hoops to finally get access to it. I looked over the author website and had to search where to find it, only to find out I had to sign up for the newsletter, which then sent me an email, which brought me to a screen to enter which email address I’d like the bonus chapter sent to, which emailed me a new link to go to a website and hit “Get the bonus chapter” and finally get it to pop up and let me read it. Streamlining that ease of access would be some nice quality of life.

The free novella does not look like something I would read on my own, but it’s definitely piqued my interest after having finished Signal Lost.

Alright onto the spoilery bits:

>!4. Drey's motivation. I feel like I saw his betrayal coming from his first reaction to Fia, but I feel like we never really got a solid explanation of why he ended up being a turncoat. The best "villains" are ones you can feel for, you don't necessarily agree with what they're doing, but you can at least say, "shit, yeah, I can see why they're acting this way." But with Drey, the other main characters treat him like family even though they know he's kind of a piece of shit because they know the shit he's been through. But we find out he's been selling them out for years? What's the motivation?!<

>!5. I was pretty big bummed we didn't see much space fighting. We jumped from pre-battle to them being on the ship already and I wish we'd seen more of the Federation getting surprised.!<

>!Oh, and spoilery things I liked!!<

>!1. Verilla. Nice.!<

>!2. "She's an amphibian you fucking idiot" had me cackling. !<

>!3. Electro-massage is a great idea. But then it had me mentally arguing that she was neither a fish nor frog, but an eel.!<

>!4. Full-throated apology had me laughing hard enough my wife asked what was so funny.!<

>!I'm sure there's more but I'm forgetting them at the moment.!<

Overall, highly recommend, glad I picked up the paperback (why no hardcover, Onyx), and I will definitely be keeping my eye on this author.

https://onyxsullivan.com/ 

Edited to add the author's link.