Saving
Askara by J.M. Link

Victoria’s
day starts out like any other aboard the transorbital ship, Phoenix.
Such is the life of an emergency medicine specialist in the age of
“post-discovery”. Sure, she had always dreamed of
interacting with intelligent extraterrestrial life- the real thing,
not those microbes on distant moons. Who wouldn’t? She was still
happy with her career, however mundane and demanding it might be.
That’s what it took to run a ship the size of a small city smoothly.
Monotony. But all that changes one morning, and suddenly she’s not so
sure she didn’t stick her foot in it… 

Be
careful what you wish for. 

*** 
Escape
had been their only drive, and even death was preferable to the
alternative. But they never thought their flight for freedom would
put them in an uncharted system. Forced to interact with an isolated
world and its inferior, albeit curious people. When it affords them
an unforseen and unprecedented opportunity to take back their world
from those who seek to destroy them, however, Aderus begins to wonder
if it wasn’t fate. Earth’s proposal is shocking and uncomfortable for
a fierce, independent race that relishes in their solitude. But the
more he learns of humans, the more he comes to admire and respect
them. One, in particular. 

*WARNING*
Not intended for readers under 18. 
Contains
explicit sexual content.

Attention
Monsterfuckers

This
is a good one.

The
novel introduces a group of (all male) aliens who managed to escape a
prison. They are at war with another race and their main goal is to
free their females who are still imprisoned. Seeking
help they contact earth.

Ok,
let’s get my only point of critique
out of the way before I start gushing: The plot explains some things
a little too conveniently. For
example the way the heroine remains practically the only liaison
between the aliens and the humans requires some suspending of
disbelief. But this is nitpicking when applied to a book about highly
fuckable aliens. 😉

Now
the gushing:

The aliens in this book are not just humans with different
skin color and some fun accessories like a spare dick but
truly alien in appearance. They
reminded me of the Yautja
from Predator with
only their mouths being not quite so extreme. Coming from a violent but advanced society their rules and behaviors are quite different from human norms. Also their females are described as stronger and even more
violent than the males. Only the strongest get to mate…

The
protagonists Victoria and Aderus experience neither instalust nor,
god forbid, instalove.
Instead
they slowly get to know and become
strangely fascinated by each other. Lots
of talking, confusion,
awkwardness and cultural misunderstandings ensue. It’s adorable. 

Victoria is the first who realizes that she’s sexually attracted to
Aderus and she definitely acts upon it. To ascertain her dominance
and therefore
desirableness she even manages to knock him out (by surprise) in
front of an audience. Poor Aderus doesn’t know if he should be angry, embarrassed or horny.

Saving Askara is a wonderful character driven slow burn romance with an
emotionally satisfying pay off. Nothing
is rushed, everything happens at the right time. When they finally
have sex it’s hot and sexy but also awkward, a
little bit frightening
and confusing which keeps
their first time from being unrealistic (as far as alien fucking goes) and
makes it even more intense.

Oh,
and the best thing? Saving Askara seems to be the first in a series.
🙂