In the Devil's Nebula (Phoenix Adventures #2) by Anna Hackett Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: science fiction romance
Series: Phoenix Adventures #2
Pages: 276
Published by Anna Hackett on March 18, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon, Kobo
Goodreads
She wants her freedom, and only one daring starship pilot can help her get it.
Previously published - has been lightly edited.
On a deadly mission to the lawless Devil's Nebula, Commander Zayn Phoenix lost it all: his career, his friend, his sanity. Now the former Strike Wing pilot fills his days with dangerous adventures with his treasure hunter brothers. But his nights are haunted by the friend he lost.
Then a beautiful assassin lures him into a hunt. An assassin with the face of a dead woman.
Ria Dante wants to escape the Assassin’s Guild, and she needs the help of the man she’s been dreaming about for months. What she doesn’t need is the distraction of Zayn’s muscled body and charming grin. And she definitely doesn’t need him thinking she’s his dead friend.
Zayn and Ria embark on a perilous adventure for an ancient artifact used in the infamous assassination of old Earth president, Abraham Lincoln. As the undeniable heat between them intensifies, they head straight into the heart of the Devil's Nebula, and collide with the ghosts of their pasts.
My Review:
This is the second book in Anna Hackett’s re-release of her Phoenix Adventures series, and I was reminded yet again of how much I loved this series back when it came out ten or so years ago. I’m also pleased beyond imagining that the stories – at least so far and we’ll certainly see – are still just as good a decade later.
In other words, no suck fairy has invaded while I wasn’t looking and I’m SO HAPPY about that.
Instead, the re-releases remind me both of my original love for the series AND for the genre called SFR or ‘Science Fiction Romance’. It’s every bit as good – if not a bit better IMHO – as ‘romantasy’. It just needs a catchy new genre name to be every bit as popular. Some marketing genius needs to get started on that RIGHT AWAY!
OK, I’ll get down off my soap box and back to the book. At least, I’ll TRY.
When I read this back then, in the still early days of Reading Reality (which is what makes this book SO APPROPRIATE for this year’s Blogo-Birthday Celebration) I loved this series AND I loved this second book in the series even more than I did the first book, At Star’s End.
Which I honestly forgot about over the intervening years. But it’s still true. I did enjoy this one just a touch better – and I think that boils down to Zayn and Ria. (Not that Dathan and Eos weren’t fun.) It feels like Zayn and Ria are more equal. Both that they are more equally badass AND that they are more equally fucked up emotionally.
They are both missing pieces – and even some of the same pieces. Both have had their dreams stolen – and by the same people. Both need to fight to get those dreams back – and not take their losses out on each other OR shutting down, which they are both prone to do.
Part of what I loved about Devil’s Nebula back in the day, and the series as a whole, is the way that it manages to extrapolate out into a far future where Earth is mostly gone and yet still hearken back to the history that we’re familiar with.
In At Star’s End, they were chasing a fragment of the Mona Lisa. In the Devil’s Nebula, they’re after the gun that John Wilkes Booth used to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. The ‘Lincoln Derringer’ really does exist, and it really does have the storied history that is ascribed to it in THIS story.
Like my recent re-read of At Star’s End, I remembered the original story of In the Devil’s Nebula in general but not in specific. Specifically not the humongous secret that teases at the reader – and the characters – for much of the story and is revealed as a big twist of an emotional scene. Looking back at my earlier review, (HERE) I did figure out the secret then and did this time as well, but from entirely different starting points.
Last time around, it was due to a book I’d recently finished at the time. This time around, I had a guess but wasn’t sure whether the situation was more akin to The Ghost Brigades in John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series or Captain Marvel’s origin story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I’ll leave you to figure it out for yourself because In the Devil’s Nebula is well worth a read or re-read.
Escape Rating A: I did like this just a bit more than At Star’s End both times around. So this is still a Grade A read to beat that first book’s A-. Part of that is the characters and part is that this second book already has some scaffolding for its universe to build onto. I’ll let you be the judge of that – which I sincerely hope you will.
Science Fiction Romance is still very much my jam, and I’m so happy to have a classic in the genre back and available again. I’m looking forward – VERY MUCH – to the re-release of the rest of the At Star’s End series and hopefully more in this universe.
And in the meantime, I recently finished Marc, the latest book in the author’s CURRENT science fiction adventure and romance series, Hunter Squad, and now I’m looking forward to the re-release of the third book in the Phoenix Adventures series, On a Rogue Planet, orbiting this way in April.
There’s a giveaway every day in this Blogo-Birthday Celebration. Today’s giveaway is the winner’s choice of any one of Anna Hackett’s terrific romances (up to $20 US), whether your jam is SFR, action adventure, romantic suspense or contemporary. She has something for every romance reader and they are all FANTASTIC!
I enjoy your reviews for Anna Hackett. I love her Sci-Fi Romance novels and have read a few. As for what I’d pick maybe the first book in Oronis Knights or Galactic Kings. Both are on my TBR.
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