A SMALL DEGREE OF HOPE BY LYNDI ALEXANDER: BOOK REVIEW

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4 star rating
A Small Degree of Hope
By Lyndi Alexander
Author’s Website:  http://lyndialexander.wordpress.com/

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Sammy

a-small-degree-of-hope-lyndi-alexanderSynopsis:

Against her wealthy father’s demands, and the usual blockades of a male dominated profession, Kylie Sanderson proves worthy of her position as lead investigator of planet Andan’s Scientific and Investigative Research Taskforce. Someone is killing Andan’s women in an attempt to mutate them into reptiles. Kylie makes it her mission to discover who’s behind the murders and prevent more grotesque deaths.

Shapeshifting lizard Griff comes to Andan to stop his brethren from mutating other planet’s women into mindless breeding stock. Overcoming Kylie’s suspicious and defensive nature proves difficult, but he must in order to help the SIRT team thwart his planet’s scientists.

When Kylie is abducted and becomes the first human to survive the transformation, it’s up to Griff to rescue her so SIRT can restore her human form. On the run and desperate to unravel the mysteries of Kylie’s past to solve the crimes of their present, can she and Griff forge a future for themselves?

WARNING: Language, Violence, Sex.

Review:

This is a wonderful sci-fi storyline! There is lots of action. The characters were interesting, with lots of quirks that made them interesting, some likable and others not so much.

Kylie is a strong heroine, that has worked very hard at  becoming who she is as a detective. Her family seems to have issues, although her mother comes through for her late in the book. Her father….yikes, not good daddy material.

Griff was a sweetie, and completely different than his brothers, I loved that the author went to his world and that there were many others in his society that were more like him. I thought that was a nice twist, it would have been easier for the author to make the whole society cold and ruthless especially since they were reptilian, but she surprised me by how she was able to incorporate allies in such a positive way.

In all honesty the romance was weak. Pacing of it was off and wasn’t very romantic, I guess perhaps it was meant to be that way because of the differences in the two main characters. It just felt off.  I did like how the author left Griff different and Kylie changed. Nice different way to write the story. So many of the “sci-fi romances” have the “other” species look and act humanoid. In this story the author lets us see the differences in an interesting way.

The Sci-fi storyline was awesome! What a great way to show how trying to change a species doesn’t work.

There is lots of action, family drama, lighter sex scenes, and a wonderful mystery to solve.

I highly recommend this story to young adult to adults who enjoy a smart, well written, interestingly different sci-fi story with lighter romance in it. The romance doesn’t take over the story, it stays a mystery as the detectives try to figure out what’s going on. I would like to see more stories in this world, with Griff and Kylie working together. What a great team they make.