Finders Keepers
Linnea Sinclair
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2005 Bantam Spectra Books
ISBN: 0553587986

The red-hot adventure of two space outcasts on a collision course with destiny.

Captain Trilby Elliot is a barely legal independent trader. While working on Avanar, a poisonous planet she's used for years as a repair stop on her cargo runs in the Conclave's trading lanes, she sees a Tark fighter ship crash land in the jungle. When she investigates she finds a rather large, handsome survivor.

Rhis Vanur is a Zafharin military officer, arrogant, powerful & on a desperate mission. Though he's wounded, he manages to get Trilby in a choke hold & control of her bucket of nuts & bolts. It's going to be a miracle if they survive each other's company on her starfreighter, the aged Circura II Careless Venture under the diligent care of the equally ancient 'droid -- Dezi.

Reason takes hold & Rhis decides to help Trilby get her freighter up & running. As they head back to her home base, Port Rumor, she receives a comm from her favorite watering hole there that her best friend, another cargo freighter, has gone missing, right on the borders of the dreaded 'Sko territory.

Then they learn the warlike 'Sko are out hunting for her, & they'll be lucky to keep their respective skins. They hightail it to Rhis' home base among the mighty warriors of the Zafharin empire. Only once there, Trilby finds out that this man who has stolen her heart, has some dark secrets, the least of which is that he's the commander of a battleship, returning with data he stole after being held captive by the 'Sko.

In the thick of an intergalactic bid for power, where old trade route maps of jumpgates hold the key to surprise attacks & eventual conquest, for better & for worse... or until death blasts them to oblivion... Trilby & Rhis battle to stay alive, to find out who the traitor is, & keep their distrust of alien strangers from killing their newfound love.

In a time when space travel is sophisticated & a normal part of their lives, these intrepid adventurers follow the clues, enticing Trilby's old flame, Zagan, the nephew of the CEO of an interplanetary trading organization & a politician bent on treating with the enemy, to disclose the secrets he's after, & learning each other's languages, & that of their hearts.

Finders Keepers is a lusty tale of intrigue & battles, with a shipload of humor, cultural misunderstandings & technology. I rarely read Sci-Fi space operas because they're all far more technical than I find palatable, however, Finders Keepers has just the right ingredients of comedy, action, passion & clashing cultures that I simply could not put it down!

A deliciously amusing & entertaining read. Probably too much romance for hardcore Sci-Fi-ers, although it's sure to attract women readers.

More from Linnea Sinclair (writing as Megan Sybil Baker):
An Accidental Goddess
Wintertide
Gabriel's Ghost
Command Performance
(06/19/05)

Rebecca