I’d be damned if I was going to meet it while cramped and bent in here. The plot, while not incredibly original, was twisty enough to keep me engrossed, and if I say I went looking for a sequel as soon as I finished the book, that should give you an idea of how much I enjoyed “Darkship Thieves”.Ī passage from Chapter Four, when Athena comes face-to-face with Kit for the first time after fleeing her father’s ship: It’s an entertaining adventure-packed romp, Athena grows into a pretty impressive heroine, and Kit is a wonderfully charismatic hero right from the start.

Chaos and confusion ensues (is her father really in trouble, who can she trust?), and Athena has no choice but to flee to Kit’s homeworld, and begins to slowly unravel her family history and its secrets in an attempt to return home. Athena – the only remaining heir of her Patrician family – escapes from her father’s ship after what appeared to be a mutiny by her father’s bodyguards, and lands in the hands of Kit, one of the infamous darkship thieves. I was in the mood for a SF romance and this fitted the bill perfectly. But what she got instead would be the adventure of a lifetime-if she managed to survive… In a short time, after taking out the stranger-who turned out to be one of her father’s bodyguards up to no good, she was hurtling away from the ship in a lifeboat to get help. Which must have been why she woke up in the dark of shipnight, within the greater night of space in her father’s space cruiser, knowing that there was a stranger in her room. Never had any interest in finding out the truth about the DarkShips. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. So I picked it up, began reading the first few pages, and knew I wanted to take it home…Īthena Hera Sinistra never wanted to go to space. Actually, the cover art works both ways – it caught my eye as an obviously Baen cover on the library display, hence me taking a closer look. Ignore the cover depicting a half-naked woman (why, oh why, Baen) because there is a wonderful SF romance lurking inside.

Oh well, who said jealousy was rational.Īnyway, in an attempt to focus my mind on how many books I have not read, I decided to spend this lovely chilly damp Bank Holiday afternoon updating my list of books read in 2010 – grand total of 55 to date – and realised I never blogged about Sarah A Hoyt’s “Darkship Thieves”, which I picked up at random during one of my library visits and enjoyed tremendously. Sort of silly really, because I have waaaay too many books that I have not yet read, and the last thing I need is yet more books. I am crazy jealous of all those people who attended BEA and/or the RT convention (or both!) and came away with massive book hauls.

Darkship thieves