To begin at the end, when I finished this novella, I immediately put in requests at the library for the second and third books in the Chaotic Orbits series because I enjoyed it that much and was very interested to see where the story would go next.
If I were to start at the beginning, I would tell you that following my enjoyment of Olivia Waite’s Murder by Memory I went on the hunt for books with a similar space mystery vibe because I had enjoyed it so much and that Beth Revis’s Full Speed to a Crash Landing had come to my attention via its tagline: “A high octane sexy space heist”.
Sounded great to me.
I sailed through this is one sitting, pulled in by the narration of Ada who is very obviously up to something but not letting the reader or the other characters she is interacting with know too much, using the classic lies of omission formula to keep her secrets to herself. When the book opens, she’s running out of oxygen and waiting to see if the nearby ship will follow the law and rescue her. But she’s been salvaging – and had gotten to the crash site suspiciously early – so the people on board the ship are wary of bringing her on board. She works her way into the crew’s good graces by being able to help them with their salvage mission. It also doesn’t hurt that the food is good, and her handler Rian is easy on the eyes.
I loved the way that Revis put her foot on the gas and just kept the story going. This is mostly in the cozy zone, so all the tension is in trying to deduce who has the upper hand at any given moment. In her author’s note Revis mentions that this series was written based on her getting what I would describe as Big Mad at a backhanded compliment she received at a fan event and writing this was meant to prove them wrong. I would LOVE to know what that comment was but based on the tenor of the book I’ve got a couple ideas and I’m sure the rest of the series might help elucidate some of the options.