Honor Bound / Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre

4.25 stars out of 5

Zara Cole was a thief back on Earth, but she’s been recently upgraded to intergalactic fugitive. On the run after a bloody battle in a covert war that she never expected to be fighting, Zara, her co-pilot Beatriz, and their Leviathan ship Nadim barely escaped the carnage with their lives.

Now Zara and her crew of Honors need a safe haven, far from the creatures who want to annihilate them. But they’ll have to settle for the Sliver: a wild, dangerous warren of alien criminals. The secrets of the Sliver may have the power to turn the tide of the war they left behind—but in the wrong direction.

Soon Zara will have to make a choice: run from the ultimate evil—or stand and fight.

An excellent follow-up to the first book. More is revealed about the Honors universe and it’s a dark and twisty place. Perfect for an adventure for a girl from the mean streets of Earth, like Zara Cole. I am glad that there will be a third volume, as this is a great fantasy world and it would be a shame not to explore it fully. Keep on writing, Ms. Caine and Ms. Aguirre!

I would maybe rate it at 4.25 or 4.33 stars, when I gave the first book the full 5 star treatment. Some of this is undoubtedly due to my mental state these days, whirling with many different priorities. Plus I had some books for my real-life book club that needed attention right while I was in the middle of reading this. Distractions!

If you feel strongly about cliff-hangers, you may wish to wait until this series is complete, because I would have to call the ending to this volume a cliff-hanger. However, I would strongly recommend the series to readers of fantasy and science fiction--it may be classified as Young Adult, but trust me there is enough substance here to please an older adult as well. (Caine is particularly good at that, I find).

I do find myself wondering about the tendency in the science fiction genre to portray humanity as the street fighters in the universe, looked down on by extraterrestrial species for our aggression and general dangerousness. I’ve encountered this idea repeatedly, including in this series and I think that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I guess we need to be optimistic that we could hold our own in the universe.

At any rate, this was an excellent book, with a great set-up for the next and I can hardly wait to get my hands on volume 3.