This is one of the best Lindsey books, and I've read nearly all of them starting with Captive Bride. Spunky awesome females, gorgeous Alpha Males and fun, appropriately cheesy dialogue; what more could you want in a romance novel? As for the readers complaining about the delicious spanking, if you're offended by a ridiculously strong man taking a bratty woman over his knee I don't understand why you read cheesy FICTION romance novels in the first place :) Excellent book surpassed only by Warrior's Woman!

I admit, I can't review the whole book as I stopped reading about half way through, something I never do. I just got to the half way point and was so disgusted with Shanelle being whiny and afraid of everything and even more disgusted with Ly-San-Ter that I didn't want these two characters to have anything more to do with one another. So I threw the book away and made up my own ending.

I for one do not appreciate the abusive overtones that are going on in this story. BDSM is actually quite enjoyable when both participants are completely willing and know their own minds and bodies. But honestly, when a woman says no, even if her body (according to the guy anyway) says yes, it still means no. I felt like Ly-San-Ter didn't in any way respect Shanelle or her wishes/fears. "Oh, I've just been so overzealous that I crushed you, bruised you, almost suffocated you and caused you to faint. Oops. Let me give that one more go. No, I won't take no for an answer, it has to be right now."

The other message that I kept getting from this book, and perhaps this is just the author, is that men know our bodies better than we do. Which is of course total crap in my humble opinion. This book held promise, but it so didn't deliver for me.

As a great fan of both trashy romance AND pulp science fiction, I'm begging you, PLEASE stop doing 'science fiction romance,' Joanna Lindsey; I'm pleading for mercy here! Your world building is atrocious and while I'm all for bending the boundaries of genre, it would help the cause of breaking out of the genre ghetto greatly if the books you try to do it in didn't suck anti-matter harder than a black hole!

I do understand that in all Lindsey's novels, setting is a prop for her 'romances' (read bodice rippers) but at least with the historical romances the reader has a generic setting they can place it in.
The men from Ly-San-Ter (Lysander, from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, get it? Ha. Ha. TAINTED FOREVER) are basically Luddite vikings in space. You can't even be sure if they're supposed to be native to their planet or if they colonized it or what, because the SF setting really is nothing but a poorly used prop rather than essential to the story. Sure, it's trashy romance, not trashy SF, but small details like these become very distracting after a while.

Speaking of misused SF tropes, did any one else feel squicked out that even the computers are gendered, and gender dominated? Even the shipboard computer, ostensibly female, becomes seduced and dominated by the house computer which she created and programmed. If you're going to apply human ideas like gender to a computer, then does that mean she's been seduced by her son? Creepy.

Creepy as well, Lindsey's treatment of her heroine, who is totally dominated by all the men in the world, apparently. She learns self defense, but does it ever occur to her to just stay off the mother loving (literally, if you're a computer) planet? I know logic from one of Lindsey's females is a rather tall order, but really. And then there's that punishment scene, and the fact that women on that planet are pretty much slaves. Can Lindsey write anything that isn't borderline BDSM?

In other words, this is a run of the mill Lindsey romance with a really atrocious setting. SF fans should avoid at all costs. Romance fans should probably take a pass too if they have any taste. And if you're a fan of both? Dude, come on, I just said fans of both genres should stay far away from this stinker.

I had a difficult time trying to rate this story. There were definitely moments that were fun and interesting to read, but especially when compared to the prequel (Warrior's Woman), I can't help but feel that this book was lacking.

I found Shanelle to be a bit childish and weak- particularly in light of her parents. You would think that she had a bit more backbone and would face her fears instead of running away. I also found Falon to be at times a shallow brute. This defintely wasn't a book about love blossoming between two equally strong and spirited characters.

Like I said, this book had its moments which made it a good read, but compared to the stellar Warrior's Woman (about Shanelle's parents) this just didn't quite compare. Perhaps I just expected too much after the first book.

with a few exceptions it was a great read - one thing was that I was sort of frustrated with how whiney the heroine was about their first time and how bad it hurt and how long she carried on being scared. Otherwise, it was very cute and a great follow-up to Warrior's Woman.