Blood of a Traitor by Sandra Barret

Blood of a Traitor
by Sandra Barret
Pages: 164
Date: November 21 2013
Publisher: Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company
Series: Terran-Novan (2nd in series)

Review
Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0
Read: July 20 to 21 2016

This second book in this series and second full length work I've read by this author, (actually, I just remembered everything I've read by this author has been in this is series, including that short story I'd read), follows a different bunch of characters than the prior book in the series.

The first book involved one side of the 'Terran-Novan' conflict, the Terran's. This one focuses on the Novan side. Though from the view point of a 'Terran' (she isn't really a Terran, but a clone made by the Novans from a Terran POW).

Interesting to see 'the other side', though I had been wrong in my previous review - no character from that book appears in this one. In the previous book, the main characters come into contact with some Novan military people on the ground of some unnamed planet. I had this misinterpretation of the plot synopsis for the second book - that it would include one of the Novans from that encounter.

Right, so. Big long number, aka 'Kay', is a Terran clone. She's something like the 9th generation of her line (if letters of the alphabet are to be taken as some sign). Generation might be the wrong word, 9th 'product' might be closer to accuracy.

Kay's line was set up to find out of they can tease out superior tactical abilities as some kind of usable gene/modification. Kay herself doesn't care about that, at least beyond knowing about it - she's more concerned about surviving and keeping her friend Jax alive. She's more the kind to hide her abilities, than to flaunt them.

You can't really say that lesbian nature of the book is unimportant, what with the humping, and the vaguely unsatisfying romance, but it is more of a technicality than anything. Kay's female. She likes humping random pickups. And she's a lesbian. So those pick-ups are female. But the pick-ups themselves do not really play much of a role in this book. The romance part (as in the actual coupling, as opposed to the random hook-up portions), plays a bigger role, but one that is not . . . hmms . . detailed enough to matter that both people involved are female.

Bah. This review is not going anywhere. mmphs.

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The book opens with Kay and her squad 'doing stuff' in a military operation. Several people are shot/killed/live; the survivors go back to a base. Along the way the reader learns that many of the people involved in the military (at least it seems that way), are, in one way or another, 'owned' by the Nassien corporation. Hmms, strike that '' around owned. They are owned by the Nassiens.

Kay, and several others, like Jax, are people who holds certain genes that are being tested by the Novans. There is a certain amount of political/family infighting going on, and Kay and the others get swept up into it.

Which leads to another character in the book (I'd say 'other lead', but she's a cypher, important enough in her way, but a 'thing' to bounce stuff off of, not specifically her own fully formed character). That other character being Lt Col Nassien. One of Kay's 'owners', and also the person in charge of the military mission that most of the book follows (protecting and defending a genetic bank from the Terrans).

Two things to note about Nassien - people have been attempting to 'take her out' for a while now; and . . . um . . . *whistles, trying to remember other thing*. Oh, right, I wanted somewhere to note that she was/is a Muslim. If, you know, anyone cares to know such things.

Normally I'd change course here by vaguely saying 'the two characters then circled each other for the rest of the book', but no, this is much more of a Science fiction, military fiction book than a romance. Or, more completely, this is a science fiction book with a thread of romance, rather than a Romance book with a thin layer of science fiction.

I still like the first work I read by this author best of all, followed by the first book in this series, and then this book here. A quite entertaining diversion, but more of a fluffy snack than anything else. But then, I like fluffy snacks.

July 22 2016