Lauren's Barbarian: A SciFi Alien Romance

Icehome Series, Book 1

By: Ruby Dixon

Narrated by: Felicity Munroe, Sean Crisden

Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's Summary

A lush, tropical island on an icy planet makes no sense.

Then again, not much makes sense anymore after waking up and finding myself not in bed but on a strange world populated by aliens. Since that moment, I've learned that nothing is normal anymore and I've got to roll with the punches. I can handle this, though. I'm strong and capable. 

So...washed up on a tropical island? Got it handled.

Separated from the others in my group? Handled.

Stranded alone with a brutal but delicious alien man that can't speak English but has great...ahem...body language? Yup, handled. 

Add in the fact that my cootie - a symbiont I need to survive - has chosen my big, hulking alien friend as my fated mate? Let's just say that the situation isn't the only thing that's going to be handled.

But it isn't long before I learn that the tropical island paradise is a death trap and we're all in grave danger, aliens, and humans alike. To survive this, I'll need my tempting guy to give me a hand with the situation...good thing he's got four of them.

Contains mature themes.

©2017 Ruby Dixon (P)2018 Tantor

God I love Ruby Dixon

Im not big on aliens, but I gave it a shot because I love Dixon's writing, and WOW. So glad I did. Her plots are solid, but still romance based, and full of developing characters. I can't believe she sold me on intergalactic space Smurfs, BUT HERE WE ARE, LOL.

Story was awesome, less than impressed with narrators.

I really enjoyed this new spin off of the Ice Planet Barbarians even though I didn't like why there is this spin off. I don't like that Maddock's old crew was taken and killed off! However the new cast of characters are set up for some very interesting story lines.

Ruby Dixon, the author, has three series that are in Audible so that is the reasoning behind the three sets of narrators. I loved the narrators for the Ice Planet Barbarians, the but who did the male voices was awesome hands down. I completely hate how both narrators did the voices for the males in this book. They are made to sound slow whitted, the female voices where good though.

I tried and tried again, but nope. Disappointed.

1. Repetitive. Basically a repeat from the Ice Barbarian series, dumb human females included. I only read the first book and less than half of the second before I gave up.
2. Lauren's character is actually smartly done; however, she should've left Marisol to fin for herself after so many attempts at hiding, especially when they're in the process of dismantling a space ship. I just can't get over these gals' lack of survival instincts and dumb choices.
3. I wish they would just tell us if Marisol has some kind of disability; she's a coward and childish. This behavior goes way beyond shy and introverted.
4. Super slow. Ms. Munroe leaves too much time between shifts in dialogue and the story itself is dragging. I'm an hour and a half in and I will not be finishing it. I'm just bored.
5. Why haven't we been introduced to the male lead yet? We're on chapter 4 for crying out loud.

Extraterrestrial romance sounds like a really cool concept; I can't help to think the author finds young women really this stupid. I'm not a young gal myself, but I can't imagine having 0 empathy or 0 common sense in regards to their situation. A little dramatic crying? Yes. Downright ignorance in all the women? No.
There has to be more to the characters personalities and life stories. Perhaps, if I continued to read Lauren's story, I might've learned more from her, but after 1 1/2 hours ...you lost me and now I don't give 2 shits about the story or the character.

Needless to say I won't be reading anymore from Ruby Dixon if her only portrayals of female leads are ignorance, blind arrogance, and self-sabotage. I just can't take anymore stupid female leads.

Lauren and Kathar bring new blood and fresh plots

Especially since this was free to borrow as part of the Audible Escapes package, this was mostly a good expansion to the Ice Planet Barbarian series. This is book 1 of the offshoot Icehome series. I recommend at least reading the original book 1 (Ice Planet Barbarians) as it sets the main setting: human women crash on an alien planet, and encounter sexy blue aliens (Sakui). All beings must get a parasite (Kwee ... or as the humans say “cootie”) to survive. In turn, the kwee selects couples to resonate, or mate. Explicit and fun couplings ensue. There are 18 books on Audible for the original series, with my favorite two narrators.

Icehome Series:
When yet another cargo ship with 16 human females and 4 other aliens ends up on the ice planet, the Sakui/human tribe resolves to ditch the ship in the ocean in order to avoid slavers finding them. This new series starts up at the beach as they prepare to scuttle the ship. Through a series of contrived plot points, two of the new humans, Lauren and Marisol, end up across the ocean on what I call Skyclaw island.

Turns out there are Sakui on Skyclaw Island. Much like the stretched plot of more humans getting stranded on Nothoth, and the addition of still more alien males that apparently are human compatible, this island contains Sakui variations.

Pros: listening just for the fun of it, I like the new Sakui variations, such as Kathar having four hands. I also like that these Sakui are a bit more macho, and less of the big, lovable lug vibe of the original tribe. Lauren was a smart, capable woman with a good sense of humor and positive outlook in her preposterous situation.

Cons: Marisol was way too annoying and whining. Thankfully, she’s relegated to a supporting character and largely in the background from chapter 5. The new narrators for this series, while not terrible, didn’t bring the series alive like the IPB narrators. The female narrator is very nasal and her male voices to me sound like high school jocks with colds. The male narrator is often robotic and monotone, yet bursts out to over acting at odd moments, and seems to be aiming to set the record for lowest, most gravelly voice for Kathar.

Biggest pet peeve: given the extensive number of prior books, the two new narrators should have listened to at least one full book. It’s jarring for them to mispronounce staples of the series, like how Kwee is mispronounced as “kooWHEE.” I imagine I would have liked this much better with the original narrators.

This is an 8 hour book that took the first 2 hours just to get Lauren onto the island for the initial meeting with Kathar. I recommend picking up at Chapter 5 if it drags too much for you. You will have lost nothing.

A fun romance.

LAUREN’S BARBARIAN is my first novel by Ruby Dixon and I liked it from the start to end. It’s the first novel in a series so a little time was spent in the beginning setting up the world. It was interesting and funny so I didn’t find it too long.

Both the heroine (and other abductees) and the hero (and his race) are likeable and I enjoyed seeing how their characters developed with the added difficulty of a language barrier. Hearing the wonderful Sean Crisden narrate as the hero who at first completely misinterpreted the heroine’s actions was a total hoot that had me doubled over, laughing. At the same time, the story evolved into one of survival, trust and ultimately, love. I thought it was well done, and look forward to more stories in the series.

It was my first time hearing narrator Felicity Munroe and I appreciated her characterisations. She and Sean Crisden together created a pleasurable listening experience.

Pretty good

Overall, it was a good story but the beginning as a little draggy. Still enjoyed the book nevertheless

love the story but...

Ok so I love the ice planet series but I guess I have one complaint with the reading of it. call me bias but in the ice planet audio books the work Khui was said a diffrent way and that's how I've come to like it. The way the readers say it in this book almost sounds like they are calling it a coodie. It's driving me nuts and I find myself yelling at the reader "Its Kwii!!!!! not Khowii" lol. I know it's not a big deal but I mean we get used to stuff and it bugs me that's it's changed. I also didn't like how all the males in the beginning sound Russian or something. I miss the other male voices from the ice planet books. I think I'll stick to reading to books instead of listening for my own mental stability hahahah. But I love the story's and hope they never end.

Repeative

I enjoyed the story a lot. However the characters repeated themselves to many times and it was exhausting!

explicit sex, quirky

the sci find part is minimal.. put logic out the window.. story is basic macho Man meets competent woman.. then it's sex.. speedy love. I had to FF thru explicit sex scenes, a don't need that body part by body part description, but the concept of 2 very different folks and the 2 different points of view kept me listening. buy when on sale, not too much thinking involved.

Great Story

I enjoyed it. I liked how the story evolved. There was great chemistry between the hero and heroine. I felt she was brave, confident and was no wilting flower. The author created a great characters. I enjoyed it.

Brilliant.

Was a little bit prejudice about the whole four armed alien thing, and had decided not to buy this book. but, I changed my mind and I'm so glad. I really enjoyed it. I loved the baby. I loved how the clans came together. And I loved the suspense of being on an island that could errupt at any moment.

Btw. I saw a review that mentioned Murdock's old crew being taken away and killed, but nothing like that happened in this book, so that confused me.

The narration was great. Overall, this is my favourite so far even though it is only a spin off from ice planet barbarians.

more than a spin off series

After listening to and thoroughly enjoying the ice planet barbarians series, it was a no brainer that this series would be high on my list of my next listen. while this series ice home is interconnected with the ice planet series, this is definitely not a spin off. It has all its own merits and the narration is every bit as good as the other books. I highly recommend any of Ruby's books, they all great.

Ice Planet

This is a great spinoff to her other series, however you do not need to start with that series to understand this one. It completely stands on its own, very well written and the duel narrative is excellent.

Pure escapism

The story is out of its world and you enter a new realm. The characters are well defined and believeable. The narration is great and you feel like you are in the storyline.