Review: Hero by Anna Hackett

Review: Hero by Anna HackettHero (Galactic Gladiators #3) by Anna Hackett
Formats available: ebook
Series: Galactic Gladiators #3
Pages: 150
on December 6th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

Fighting for love, honor, and freedom on the galaxy’s lawless outer rim…

Raised from birth to be a soldier, Kace Tameron is a disciplined, military-trained gladiator. He is on contract to the Kor Magna Arena to hone his fighting skills on the blood-soaked arena sand and then return to the military. He lives for one thing: to protect his planet, and on his world, love is forbidden. But then he collides with a feisty redhead from Earth who threatens to shatter his legendary control.

One moment, Rory Fraser was an engineer on a space station circling Jupiter and the next, she is abducted by evil alien slavers. After suffering at the hands of the Thraxians, she is rescued by her friends—with the help of the tough gladiators of the House of Galen. Rory finds herself outrageously attracted to straight-laced Kace. He is a skilled fighter, ultra-disciplined, and a hero at heart—but she knows passion beats within him, if only he’ll let it loose.

Rory is obsessed with finding another fellow abducted female from Earth, but as she asks questions, she finds herself ducking bullets and explosions. Someone wants Rory dead. Kace steps in as her protector, and together, they embark on a dangerous mission that will take them deep into the bowels of the arena, and deep into a scorching desire…both of which could lead them to lose not only their guarded hearts, but their lives as well.

My Review:

When Rory Fraser holds out for a hero, she ends up with two – the clean-cut warrior Kace and the robotic dog he gives her. Both the man and the dog save Rory’s life, and more than once at that. And I think that Hero the robotic dog adds just that special something that makes Hero the book my favorite (so far!) of the Galactic Gladiators series.

gladiator by anna hackettThe overall arc of the series was set in the first book, Gladiator. In a not too distant future, an intergalactic slave ship rode an unstable wormhole from the arena planet of Kor Magna to our own solar system. In a lightning raid, the Thallaxians hit a Terran space station orbiting Jupiter, and grabbed as many of the personnel as they could manage before beating a hasty retreat before the wormhole closed.

Kor Magna is over 200 light years from Earth. There is no going back.

So one by one, the crew of that station have been rescuing each other from deeper and deeper pits of hell on Kor Magna. Gladiator was Harper’s story. In many ways, she was the lucky one, because she was “bought” by the House of Galen and immediately freed. Harper rescued Regan, and her story is told in Warrior. Regan, in her turn, rescued Rory.

Although many of the trappings of the Kor Magna Arena sound a lot like the gladiator fights in Imperial Rome, there’s much more under the surface. The fights are not to the death, and the better Houses spend a lot of money on high-tech healing equipment and excellent healers. The gladiators are an investment, and the Imperators of the better Houses want to protect that investment.

The House of Galen is more than just one of those “better” Houses. All of the gladiators are free – no slaves among them. And while on the surface they swagger just as much as any other group of gladiators, under that surface they invade other Houses, and even worse places, to free those who are abused or who just aren’t meant to be gladiators.

In other words, they are Big Damn Heroes.

Kace Tameron is one of the biggest. Not that all of the gladiators aren’t big, especially in comparison to the human women. Humans in general seem to be smaller than the galactic average as represented on Kor Magna. But Kace is one of the military volunteers in the arena. His planet sent him to Kor Magna for two year’s worth of special training. But his planet, locked in perpetual warfare, has done a good job of brainwashing him into believing that the fight is all there is, and that duty is honor and honor is duty.

Rory Fraser breaks through all that conditioning. She’s been freed from horrific captivity, and she wants to live. And she wants Kace to take that step forward into living life to the fullest right there with her. If he can.

Because he’ll break her heart if he can’t.

Escape Rating A-: I loved this one. I definitely think it’s the best of the series so far, and I can hardly wait for more.

One of the things that made this particular entry in the series so special was the introduction of little Hero. Rory is an engineer, and she always wants to tinker and fix things. When Kace gives her Hero, it shows both the love that he is trying to run away from, and also just how much he understands her. Hero is both someone she can love and something she can tinker with, all wrapped into one dog-shaped package.

Hero may be mechanical, but he acts just like a dog. And it’s awesome and sweet. I’ve been looking for a word equivalent to anthropomorphic to describe Hero. There is no attempt to make the robot seem human, instead, the robot is completely DOG. Caninomorphic?

One of the other things I really liked about this particular story is that neither of the characters gets into the “I’m not worthy” shtick. Kace has been programmed to believe that love is basically a hormonal imbalance wrapped up in a distraction. And he’s right in that Rory certainly does distract him. But it’s never about thinking he’s unworthy, it all about thinking that love doesn’t exist, and that he’s not supposed to emotionally connect to anyone. Likewise, while Rory is finding her footing, she has some pretty good and realistic ideas about how to earn her place in the House of Galen. She has both engineering chops and mixed-martial-arts skills. She never doubts her ability to make herself useful. Her only frustrations are getting Kace’s head out of his gorgeous ass and following the clues to the next enslaved human.

In each book, the ending foreshadows the next one, as each heroine rescues another human, who finds herself safe in the arms of one of the gladiators of the House of Galen. So I think I know who’s next. And hopefully saw some foreshadowing of the one after that. And they both look marvelous!

Review: Warrior by Anna Hackett

Review: Warrior by Anna HackettWarrior (Galactic Gladiators #2) by Anna Hackett
Formats available: ebook
Series: Galactic Gladiators #2
Pages: 155
Published by Anna Hackett on November 6th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

Fighting for love, honor, and freedom on the galaxy’s lawless outer rim…

It was supposed to be an exciting job on a space station, but instead, scientist Dr. Regan Forrest finds herself fighting for her life when she’s kidnapped by alien slavers. Far from Earth and forced into a violent gladiatorial arena on the outer rim, she finds herself swept into the brawny arms of a big, wild alien gladiator.

Weapon, brute, gladiator, warrior… Sirrush warrior Thorin has been called many things. As a warrior of his people, he was a dark, dangerous weapon until even his own family were too afraid of him. Sold into slavery in the Kor Magna Arena, he has long ago earned his freedom. Now he enjoys the violent but rewarding life he’s carved out for himself. Until he rescues one small, smart, and perplexing female from alien slavers.

Regan is determined to make a place for herself in her new home. She may not have the skills to fight in the arena, but she’s smart and knows she can help...even as she fights her attraction to the big, bold, and fascinating Thorin. She knows he’ll never be interested in her. But when Regan catches a glimpse of her cousin across a crowded market, she needs help to mount a rescue, and it comes in the form of the gladiator she desperately wants. A gladiator hiding a dark, uncontrollable secret with the power to destroy them both.

My Review:

This was the perfect book to read last night after I gave up on watching the election news. It was ALL bad, so I decided to go to bed and live in delusional hope for one more night.

I got swept away by Warrior, and I’m oh so grateful that I did. For a brief hour or two, I was as far away from Earth as I could get, cheering on the fighters in a gladiatorial arena on the far side of the galaxy.

gladiator by anna hackettThe first book of Hackett’s Galactic Gladiators series is Gladiator, and it sets up the worldbuilding and the overarching story for the series, as well as featuring its very own Happy For Now. It doesn’t feel like an HEA, not because there are any doubts about or between the romantic leads, but because they are living in a dangerous situation. They are both arena gladiators, and while the combat isn’t supposed to be deadly, accidents certainly do happen. And sometimes they’re not accidents.

And this particular group of gladiators spends some of its nights hiding in the shadows, rescuing captives who have been purchased by other, less honorable gladiatorial houses,

Gladiator ends with one such rescue. The Thraxians kidnapped at least three women from a Terran space station orbiting Jupiter. Harper, the heroine of Gladiator, has become one herself. At the end of Gladiator Harper, along with the other fighters from the House of Galen, rescue the second, Regan.

(In case you’re wondering, yes, at the end of Warrior they rescue the third. Her story will be told in Hero, and I can’t wait!)

But Warrior is Regan’s story. She’s not the warrior of the title, though. That would be Thorin. He is one, big, tough warrior, but he’s also a man who has been wounded and betrayed too many times to believe that he is worthy of being anything more than a fighter and a killer. He believes that the monster who lives inside him makes him less than man.

Regan thinks he’s more man than she ever expected might be interested in her shy and bookish self. Of course they’re both wrong. The romance (and the danger) are in the ways that they finally figure things out.

But only while dodging a kidnapping attempt and using Regan as a very vulnerable Trojan Horse in order to rescue her friend.

The action and the hot romance never stop in Warrior. Prepare to be swept away for a steamy good time.

Escape Rating A-: I liked Warrior even more than I did Gladiator. Some of that is right book, right time, and more of it has to do with the world being just a bit more established. The heavy worldbuilding lifting was done in Gladiator, now the author has the opportunity to flesh out more of the details.

The flesh is definitely worth ogling, too. Your mind will be filled with visions of eye candy during this series.

At the same time, while the romance heats up, we also get to see a bit more of how the arena system, and the House of Galen, operate. This world is like Las Vegas hopped up on steroids and blasted into outer space. It’s a gritty place, where the lights and the glamour hide a whole lot of seedy underbelly. Which makes it darkly fascinating.

hero by anna hackettIf you like your setting a bit desperate, your action nonstop and your romance hotter than a rocket ship, I highly recommend that you let Warrior sweep you off your feet for an evening. And then hold out for Hero, coming in December.

Review: Gladiator by Anna Hackett

Review: Gladiator by Anna HackettGladiator (Galactic Gladiators #1) by Anna Hackett
Formats available: ebook
Genres: science fiction romance
Series: Galactic Gladiators #1
Pages: 250
on October 25th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsiteAmazon
Goodreads

Fighting for love, honor, and freedom on the galaxy’s lawless outer rim…

When Earth space marine Harper Adams finds herself abducted by alien slavers off a space station, her life turns into a battle for survival. Dumped into an arena on a desert planet on the outer rim, she finds herself face to face with a big, tattooed alien gladiator…the champion of the Kor Magna Arena.

A former prince abandoned to the arena as a teen, Raiden Tiago has long ago earned his freedom. Now he rules the arena, but he doesn’t fight for the glory, but instead for his own dark purpose—revenge against the Thraxian aliens who destroyed his planet. Then his existence is rocked by one small, fierce female fighter from an unknown planet called Earth.

Harper is determined to find a way home, but when she spots her best friend in the arena—a slave of the evil Thraxian aliens—she’ll do anything to save her friend…even join forces with the tough, alpha male who sets her body on fire. But as Harper and Raiden step foot onto the blood-soaked sands of the arena, Harper worries that Raiden has his own dangerous agenda…

My Review:

This one is purely for fun. There’s no great message here, and I’m not too sure about any overarching story, like Hell Squad or Phoenix Adventures. This is just plain fun.

It’s also a good take on the infamous “Mars needs Women” trope in science fiction romance, A trope I don’t normally like, but is done well in this case. Because it isn’t Mars as a whole (so to speak) that needs Earth women, just three intergalactic gladiators in particular.

It has to get started somewhere. The somewhere in this case is Space Marine Harper Adams, stationed on a scientific research station orbiting Jupiter. Disaster strikes in the form of interplanetary slave raiders, the Thraxians, who look like the Terran equivalent of demons and break into the station and kidnap several of the scientists and marines stationed there, including Harper.

But unlike many of the captives, Harper is a trained warrior. Whenever she has the opportunity, she fights back. It earns her several beatings, and the undying enmity of one of the leaders, but also keeps her in fighting shape. A preparation she needs when she is sold on an outer Rim planet as a potential gladiator for the Kor Magna Arena on Carthago..

And that’s where everything changes. Harper is a good fighter to begin with, but she’s also deceptively strong. She’s smaller and shorter than most of the gladiators in the arena, but she’s also faster. It turns out that Earth has a slightly heavier gravity than Carthago, so she gets an unexpected strength boost.

It takes her a few days to find out both the good news, the bad news, and the dangerous news.

The bad news comes first. The Thraxians found Earth by accident, through a temporary wormhole. Earth is on the far side of the galaxy. Even if she stole a ship, it would take 200 plus years to get home. It’s a blow, but not as big as it might have been. Harper has nothing and no one left on Earth. She can make a home on Carthago if she can manage to accept her new circumstances.

Those new circumstances are nothing like she expected. She’s been enslaved, and she sees the gladiators in the arena as slaves, and thinks the gladiatorial contests are like the popular perception of the Roman Empire. That might be true in some of the other houses, but not in the House of Galen, the House that bought Harper’s “contract”.

Once she fights her way through her trial bout, Harper discovers the good news, for certain select definitions of good. She learns that the House of Galen, for all of its deserved badass reputation on the arena sands, has a surprisingly soft heart. All the gladiators are free, and they all fight because they can, and because the fights that they win allow them to bargain for the freedom of those who have been brought to Carthago from far-distant worlds but who are not suitable for the arena.

There is also the dangerous news. Fighting in the arena, fighting with the team that belongs to the House of Galen, Harper finds a place where she belongs, a purpose she can believe in and a man that she has come to love.

And it all threatens to go pear-shaped when the Thraxians dangle the presence of two of her friends from that Earth space station in front of her eyes. She’ll do anything to rescue her friends from Earth, no matter what the cost to herself, to the House of Galen, or to any future she might possibly have with the love of her very surprising life.

Escape Rating B+: For a story that is this much fun, there is a lot going on. While for this reader it feels like the focus is on Harper, because she is the one who has to make the big adjustment, there is definitely a romance here.

Raiden is the lost prince of a world that the Thraxians literally destroyed. They didn’t just wipe out the civilization, they placed bombs in the planet’s core so that it would break apart. Just like Harper, Raiden can’t go home again. He’s made a life for himself as a gladiator, fighting to free as many people as possible, one way or another.

Harper makes him feel, which is both dangerous and life-affirming, especially when they both have a nasty tendency to go off alone in dangerous situations to solve their problems.

I would love to know how things got to be the way they are in this place. Also more about the Thraxians. They have a bit more “evil for evil’s sake” in them than I would like. In other words, Hell Squad got much better for me when we learned the Gizzida’s motives. I may not like their motives, but understanding them helps me enjoy the series a whole lot more. We need to see that here on Carthago.

The whole “alternate gladiator” thing reminded me of another book, which of course I had to look for. If you like this kind of scenario, but want something darker and grimmer, you might like Lindsey Piper’s Dragon Kings series, starting with Silent Warrior. The way that the gladiator contests work has a similar feel, even if Dragon Kings is set on Earth.

warrior by anna hackettI enjoyed Gladiator a lot, and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, Warrior. It looks like each book will match one of the gladiators of the House of Galen with one of the Earth women who was brought to Carthago. And it looks like a whole lot of sexy, sweaty fun!

Reviewer’s note: I don’t often see the name Galen used in fiction. My husband’s name is Galen, so I got a big kick out of thinking of him in the role of the leader of these gladiators!