Shades of Dark

The Dock Five Universe Series, Book 2

By: Linnea Sinclair

Narrated by: Dina Pearlman

Length: 13 hrs

Publisher's Summary

Can love alone save the day? Award-winning author Linnea Sinclair returns with a vibrant interstellar thriller of romance and adventure in which two lovers are tested in the crucible of deep space.

Before her court-martial, Captain Chasidah Chaz Bergren was the pride of the Sixth Fleet. Now she's a fugitive from the justice of a corrupt Empire. Along with her lover, the former monk, mercenary, and telepath Gabriel Ross Sullivan, Chaz hoped to leave the past light-years behind - until the news of her brother Thad's arrest and upcoming execution for treason. It's a ploy by Sully's cousin Hayden Burke to force them out of hiding, and it works.

With a killer targeting human females and a renegade gen lab breeding jukor war machines, Chaz and Sully already had their hands full of treachery, betrayal - not to mention each other. Throw in Chaz's Imperial ex-husband, Admiral Philip Guthrie, and a Kyi-Ragkiril mentor out to seduce Sully, and not just loyalties but lives are at stake. For when Sully makes a fateful choice, changing their relationship forever, Chaz must also choose between what duty demands and what her heart tells her she must do.

©2008 Linnea Sinclair (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

“Mixes space opera with romance ... the smashing climax will please everyone.” ( Publishers Weekly)

GREAT Series - Book 2

This is book two that continues the story told in book one of Sully and Chas. This series really is incredibly well written, with a lot of action, solid sci fi, and just the right amount of romance. So many authors get romantic sci fi wrong - this series really is the standard for the genre.

The narration was fine - I just wish she had not done accents (Sully had something that was a cross between British, SA, and Australian - really weird and off-putting, especially when no one else had one like it).

Shades of Dark

I absolutally loved it. Lots of action, spunky characters, loved the way it ended. I'd listen to it again.

Disappointed

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

The original book, and story had a great scifi theme. Some sexual connotation, but still adventure. In this book, the author spent most of the time on a sexual theme. I had a hard time enjoying a scifi book, when it kept jumping into a romance novel.

i wonder if evil masterminds read romance novels

“it’s been in the planning stages for a very long time.”
“to what end?”
“[he] wants to destroy what little faith people have left in the empire. [no matter who it is, he] still has to deal with an emperor, by lineage, sitting on the throne. destroying the emperor won’t work; but destroying the [institution] will. [he] wants the empire in an uproar, locked down under martial law, and he wants to be the one calling the shots when that happens. he will gut [the military], he will gut the [“entitlements”]. he’s almost created a civil war with [one group of people]. [another incident alienated another group of people]. [he] wants to knock it all down and then build it all up in his image.”
“but [the savages]?”
“mass hysteria. slaughter of innocents.”

this is my second listen-through, and passages seem so much more relevant today than they did a handful of years ago.

i like this narrator. she does a great job distinguishing the different voices for the different characters. there are different levels of narrator:
you have the basic reader--like the gal who reads the Twilight books--who doesn't change her voice for anything.
you have the narrator--kinda like Tessa Dare, (The Duchess Deal, et. al.)--who has different character voices per book in a series, but the voices begin to bleed together when characters cross over.
and you have the narrator who is more actor than narrator--like Tavia Gilbert (Night Huntress series) or Angela Dawe (Mackenzies / Highland Pleasures series)--who has different voices no matter how many characters there are in a series, and makes a series pretty interesting. dina pearlman fits into this third category, for me.

i like linnea sinclair's stories. i haven't spent a lot of time in the space-based realm of novel, so i do not know if she is repetitive amongst her peers, but the stories are rather fresh to me. (i especially like Accidental Goddess, so if you haven't read / listened to that one, i suggest giving it a go.)