Freeing Luka

Clecanian Series, Book 2

By: Victoria Aveline

Narrated by: Stephen Dexter

Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's Summary

Luka has spent his life researching fertility in the hopes of discovering a cure for the Clecanians' low birth rates. After years of working tirelessly with little progress, he becomes enraged when he uncovers a sinister plot to abduct compatible species from their home planets. But before he can tell anyone what he's discovered, he's captured, drugged, and thrown in a cell. 

It's just Alice's luck that when she finally begins to get her life on track, she's kidnapped by reptilian creatures and forced into a cell with a fierce incoherent alien for some kind of breeding experiment. 

Even though they aren't able to communicate, Alice and Luka find solace in each other's company. As the days drag on, it becomes harder to keep her heart locked away, until she can't help but wonder what a life with Luka might look like outside their dark prison. When an opportunity to free herself, Luka, and the other human prisoners presents itself, Alice takes it. 

Once free, can Alice and Luka's tenuous relationship survive on this planet? Will the evil men that held them prisoner ever see justice? Alice knows only one thing for certain - her life will never be the same again.

Contains mature themes.

©2020 Victoria Aveline (P)2021 Tantor

Whiny Heroine

I really liked the first book and this story is a definite let down. First off, the heroine spends the first 2 hours of the story crying. Honestly, I know the situation is grim, but I don't want to read about a heroine who can't stop crying. Then once things can finally start going well all she does is complain about Luka. Its just hard for me to like a story that is based around her judging Luka by human standards when in the first book every time the heroine did that someone reminded her not too. Its also hard to go from a great heroine in the first book to a whiny one that spends half the book in tears for book two. I may give the author one more chance but if its another cry baby I will definitely be done.

Can’t wait for 3rd book! This one is amazing!

Not only does the female in this book step up and fight back but she comforts luka and begins to warm up to him.. I read a review that said all she did was cry and complain about him within the first 2 hours of the book and that almost made me not want to read it ... im glad I chose to because that review was a complete lie... a troll review is what it was..I love the second book as much as the first and can’t wait to see what the 3rd one is like and I’m hoping there’s a story for two other characters from this one as well!!!

Different world / same hum-drum Earth dating

What’s the point of writing alien romance that’s no different than ordinary Earth romance? This was a 9 hour book with 1 hour establishing the alien abduction premise, a rushed 1 hour ending attempting to provide some sort of climactic scene to pull the H/h together … and 7 hours in between plodding through a very Earth-style courtship, with picnics, trouble caused by lack of communication, and Alice being either insecure (how can I trust my judgment because I’m so bad at picking Earth men) or constantly sending mixed signals (how dare he spy on me? In that case, it’s alright for me to spy on him).

In book 1, the female-starved and thus female-worshiping, alien society made for funnier, fish out of water good times. Here, there’s mere lip service to the allegedly powerful mating bond as Alice continually c0ck-blocks Luka and he merely sulks. Well, except when he finally takes her to bed and takes her like a dom, complete with hands tied … which makes no sense considering the premise of the males being raised to please females (literally being schooled on how to cook, clean, and service). I like doms and alphas when written right, but the inconsistencies made the nooky awkweird-wrong.

I listen to alien romance for the camp, the action, and the smexy. Sadly, there was extremely little of any of that. It’s past the halfway point for a single kiss, then an aborted hanky-panky scene, and finally a single night of getting it on just before the 8 hr mark. The narrator does a nice growly male-voice for dialogue, but for the rest of the story it’s like he’s whispering a children’s story. This would have been better edited down to a six hour length and with campier narration (preferably duet).

I moved on to book 3 because I liked book 1 and bought all of them together on sale. Book 3 improves with better “enemies” to lovers, jungle vibes (although “grumbly” to lovers is more like it). Book 4 gets back to what I loved about book 1, with the H/h interaction with other characters in a fun Marriage Games plot that highlights the fascinating Clecanian, female worshipping cultures.

Other series with great alien romance:
📍Bad Guy by Ruby Dixon is you want a better “alien-captives get together” story
📍Ice Planet Barbarians (or related Corsairs) series for big blue suede alien camp and smexy.
📍Dark Planet Warriors for silver horned alpha aliens and maximum action
📍Alien Instinct or Mandrake Company series for more space opera with your alien romance

Book one was better

The female comparing him to former bad boyfriends was annoying and her rules. I could have skipped this one

Luka Yes, Alice No!

The storyline was good except for the power play and game playing by Alice. What Alice went through does not equally equate to what Luka went through in my opinion. Narrator does a good job with characters. Plan to listen to the next book in series whenever it is released. I love Stephen’s sexy voice for Luka.

Well written but not what I was searching for

I’ll admit, I am biased because I read Theo’s book first. The book was well written and narrated, but I did found it a little difficult to get through. The narration was excellent and wouldn’t gotten 5 stars, but the female leads voice lended to her sounding whiny the whole book. The story was ok but lacked the upward climb in tension to keep the reader’s attention. I will admit this pace may not be my cup of tea, which is why I give the overall, 4 stars. Keep them coming though, would love to read more!

Great read!

I love this series and I can’t wait to read the next book! Hopefully there will be more soon.

I like this story

I did like the first story better however the story was good on its own. someone wrote a comment saying that she cried the whole first hour and then kept crying all through the book and maybe not want to get the book but that was a lie. she started out strong, and she was just and sensitive person who cried about a good book or movie, sad story something like that. but she wasn't crying all through the book and if she was in the beginning she had a right to be seen as what happened to her. I'm glad that I I just use comments as a tool and listen to a book if I want to. the reason why I gave the book of 4 instead of a five it's just because coming off the first book being so great this book just didn't have that it factor that the first book had. Alice did get on my nerves, but Jade got on my nerves in the first book so I suppose that's just the style of her lead female characters. the narrator was good. I will read the next book.

FMC is unbearable!

I had such high hopes for this book series, the first one was so good! But….. the FMC in this one was awful she was immature, rude, had a terrible personality I rolled my eyes every time she spoke or thought. I loved Luka and really feel bad he has to be mated to such a awful person for the rest of his life 😉

3.5 Stars

I didn't enjoy this one as much as Theo's but I'm not sure why that is. There was a strong start, and I was excited for the story while Luka and Alice were captives, but once they were out, I started to get bored. And it's been a while since reading the previous book, but from what I can recall, there were differences to customs between the two books, things that happened in book 1 but not 2. It kind of bugged me in the background of my mind. As always, I enjoyed the audiobook, Stephen Dexter did a great job.

Freeing Luka

I enjoyed the book. It was the second time hearing it and I really liked it! I can't wait for the rest of the series to come out...
At books that I enjoy that much I remember why I like to start a series when it's over... You have all the books and you can dive in with out waiting!!!

Another brilliant listen

I’ve not listened to these in order of release, rather order of how I enjoyed the books themselves. The audiobook has really brought this story to life for me - I didn’t find reading the book as enthralling as the others, yet on listening to it, I felt like I was listening to a completely different story with totally different characters to how I had imagined them from reading the book. Just brilliant - really enjoyed it.

riverting

couldn't put it down had to listen all the way through fantastic story throughout

Boring

Not very interactive, no character, very fraking boring. Weak story. Sorry but I could not finish.