Dark Horse

Class 5 Series, Book 1

By: Michelle Diener

Narrated by: Christina Delaine

Some secrets carry the weight of the world.

Rose McKenzie may be far from Earth with no way back, but she's made a powerful ally - a fellow prisoner with whom she's formed a strong bond. Sazo's an artificial intelligence. He's saved her from captivity and torture, but he's also put her in the middle of a conflict, leaving Rose with her loyalties divided.

Captain Dav Jallan doesn't know why he and his crew have stumbled across an almost legendary Class 5 battleship, but he's not going to complain. The only problem is, all its crew are dead - all except for one strange, new alien being.

She calls herself Rose. She seems small and harmless, but less and less about her story is adding up, and Dav has a bad feeling his crew, and maybe even the four planets, are in jeopardy. The Class 5's owners, the Tecran, look set to start a war to get it back and Dav suspects Rose isn't the only alien being who survived what happened on the Class 5. And whatever else is out there is playing its own games.

In this race for the truth, he's going to have to go against his leaders and trust the dark horse.

Winner of a SFR Galaxy Award 2016 and the Prism Award 2016 for Best Futuristic.

©2016 Michelle Diener (P)2016 Podium Audio

A Perfect Sci Fi / Romance Series You'll Love!

Last year when I found this series on Kindle, I was stunned by the beautiful writing, plotting and character development -- something I've never seen in a typical sci fi romance before. I could only hope that if the series was ever given the Audible treatment, that the author would choose the perfect narrator as well. And she did!

I LOVE sci fi romance novels, but too often the writing suffers from authors who lean a bit too heavily toward ever more bizarre alien sex scenes, and overly bit*chy dialogue for the women as a substitute for strength and/or wit. It gets old after a while, and I had given up ever finding a well written book in this sub genre, until I found this amazing series.

Michelle Diener is a wonderful author who can really write, and she has written three great books in this series. Each book contains a lovely romance, lots of action, and spectacular and well thought out science fiction -- it's a freakin miracle!

AND -- Christina Delaine is wonderful in this series, and performs it as well as any of the great narrators out there. I'll be looking forward to hearing more from her!

What a treasure!


HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (For anyone who loves sci fi romance, but also wants to read well written books!)


Note: There is no explicit sex in this series, and you won't miss it at all.

Love this series

I would really lol ike to continue with the 2nd book. I need the other books on Audible please!

So much better than I expected

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I'd totally recommend this story. It's so much more then a romance.

What did you like best about this story?

I bought it expecting a trashy/sleazy romance, but its so much more than that. Its a first contact/ai rights/political intrigue story with romance as a sub-plot.

Which scene was your favorite?

I loved the scene where Rose confirmed she could see though the camouflage.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Hell yeah! I wish I had found the ebook version first, I would have finished the series already if I had.

Any additional comments?

I can't wait for the sequels to be released.

Great book / Great Narrator

This is a really good story with great world building that happens very quickly and painlessly. Diener has written a very enjoyable scify romance novel with a great story and really good character development. I know others have done the abducted /saved story before but I really enjoyed Diener's take on it. Although the big Love happens very quickly, I like the fact that it is not spoken of as the unrealistic, it has only been 10 days but I know you are the love of my life etc etc etc. This is more along the lines of and I quote "....I really, really like you...." lets see where it goes.

Good story, good action, logical cause, effect and reactions, great world building....anyone who enjoys this genre would most likely enjoy this book.

Christina Delaine does a very good job bringing the characters and story to life. I did not have to "give it time" to get into the reading, as soon as she started, I was hooked.

The PERFECT Sci Fi Rom Mix

Absolutely loved it! I love sci & not only was this a great space opera it was fun and with no messy sex scenes! Bonus stars for that. :-D

Great and interesting ideas- amazing reader.

I love that Diener has interesting and unusual ideas for her world -the slight differences between species and the issues that these differences cause are ingenious. I’ll be getting book two.

Christina Delaine not only does a great job differentiating between characters, but has to pull off two AI voices and a couple of different species- on top of that she sings. Having no ability or talent in this arena myself I am truly amazed by her vocal repertoire! If I could give her 7 stars I would!

Great story!

I loved this audio book! It had me from the beginning. This was well written and the narrator did an amazing job!
I can't wait to hear more books by this author.

All-around Excellent

Intriguing from the very beginning, I enjoyed every bit of this book. I'm eager for the rest of the series.

Love it!

Good story, wonderful characters and enough original ideas to make an old favorite new. I highly recommend it.

Very entertaining.

This was a very enjoyable science fiction read with all the right elements, alien abduction, space travel, warring factions plus sentient AIs.
You may like it give it a try plus it’s a series!