Lord of the Storm, by Justine Davis

Lord of the Storm, by Justine Davis is a very, very hard to find book. I was practically dancing around the UBS, when I found it for about $1.00! I didn't even leave it at the clerk's desk while I continued browsing, as I'd done with the other books I'd found. What if someone saw it and stole it from me? ;-)

THE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN SPACE WARRIOR & THE SLAVE OF HER DESIRE

He is Wolf, one of the few survivors from the planet Trios, conquered by the mighty intergalactic Coalition. Magnificently handsome & virile, he is a valuable sexual slave programmed to pleasure a woman beyond her wildest dreams. She is Captain Shaylah Graymist, the Coalition's beautiful & fiery ace fighter pilot, with countless battles & victories to her credit. Medals are but a part of the reward for her heroism. Another is Wolf, offered to her as a special accolade.

But Wolf, whose spirit stays free even as his flesh is pressed into service, stirs more than Shaylah's hunger. He melts her heart. And they join together as equals to battle against slavery & the evil Coalition . . . and they unite as man & woman in the forbidden feeling called love - causing a burst of passion to shake the stars & light the vastness of space . . .

One of the marks of a keeper is when you simply can't put the book down, and when you've finished it, you can't stop thinking about it, and feel the need to go right back and reread certain scenes. That's exactly what happened to me with Lord of the Storm. I started it early on Saturday and finished it before midday. And then, during lunch, I just couldn't concentrate on conversation, because my mind was still with Shaylah and Wolf. My grade for LotS is an A-.

This is the kind of futuristic I do like. No barbarians kidnapping naive virgin healers, or crap like that. In fact, no sexism at all. Shaylah is a fighter pilot, and she's strong and resourceful (though, yes, a bit too prone to cry, almost as if to make her more palatable to readers who insist on "feminine" heroines).

Davis played with my emotions as if they were guitar strings, which made for plenty of knot-in-my-throat moments. Some of these scenes I know were a little manipulative... I mean, some were transparently manufactured precisely to tug at my heartstrings, but I still fell for it every time. Moments in which one of them would misinterpret something in a way that was not really understandable, just so that certain things would happen and the reader would get weepy. Still, I repeat, it worked.

I literally almost cried a couple of times, often with anger. The first part of the book, especially, with Wolf a slave, under the control of other people, wasn't particularly pleasant to read, but things improved once he was with Shaylah and they were on the run. The plot was very well done, fast-paced and full of adventure, but, at the same time, giving the protagonists plenty of time to develop their relationship.

As I said, I did like Shaylah. I liked her at the beginning and I admired the way she became willing to question the way things were done in her world and to fight against what she perceived as injustices. Wolf was a fascinating character, too, though I would have liked to see more of his POV. As it is, I admit, we do pretty much know how he's feeling every time, though, and it's incredibly affecting.

I'm now dying to read the sequel, Skypirate, which I've already ordered. The heroine is someone who was pretty hateful in Lord of the Storm, and I'm curious to see how Davis will redeem her. I really hope she won't defang her!