End Game by Lindsay Buroker

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult Genre: Space Opera Content: Strong language, a moderately detailed sex scene, lots of innuendo and talk of sex done in a humorous way



Alisa Marchenko has reunited with her daughter, and even though she hasn’t figured out how to get Jelena to accept Leonidas yet, she dreams of the three of them starting a new life together. They can return the Star Nomad to its original purpose of running freight and staying out of trouble (mostly).

Before that can happen, Alisa must fulfill the promise she made to Jelena: that she and her crew will retrieve young Prince Thorian, the boy who has become Jelena’s best friend. But Thorian was kidnapped by the rogue Starseer Tymoteusz, the man who wants to use the Staff of Lore to take over the entire system—and the man who may have the power to do it.

Unfortunately, Tymoteusz hasn’t left a trail of breadcrumbs. Finding him will be difficult, and even if they’re successful, facing him could be suicidal. To have a chance of surviving, Alisa will have to come up with her greatest scheme yet.

 
This is the last book in the series, and it wrapped everything up pretty neatly. I had the same issues with this book that I had with previous ones in the series. Too much emphasis on the main character's love life, and too many innuendoes. It was almost every page. A little of it was amusing, but the amount of it added to these books almost completely ruined the series for me. Luckily, I enjoyed the other aspects of the books enough to keep reading.

Needless to say, what started out as a good solid space opera with some edge of your seat moments in the first 2 books, ended up becoming "swoon and lust over the cyborg" at every turn. Also, Abelardus's actions were never taken seriously enough or dealt with. He constantly invaded Alisa's privacy by reading her thoughts, and everyone else's too.

Alisa ended up being a rather weak character in many aspects. She was the captain of the ship but could never get a handle on anything the crew did. They walked all over her. This was done to some comic effect with the chickens and the duck pond, and that was ok to a point, but like the romance and innuendos, it went too far.

Overall, I would give the series 3 stars. I do like the author's writing style when she doesn't devolve into too much of one thing, and I would like to try reading another one of her series eventually.