cover image Queen of Swords

Queen of Swords

Katee Robert. Entangled (www.entangledpublishing.com), $15.99 trade paper (246p) ISBN 978-1-937044-57-2

Frantic feuding, fussing, and fighting dominate the second Sanctify sci-fi romance (after The High Priestess). Diviner Ophelia Leoni has an under-the-influence one-night stand with delicious smuggler Boone O’Keirna. Already hurting from losing her spacecraft and crew to the evil planet-gobbling fundamentalistic Sanctifiers, who are bent on wiping out all her prophetic kind, Ophelia now has to contend with pregnancy as well as Boone’s plans to use her as a pawn in his struggle against his wicked half-brother, Kristian. Ophelia battles conniving alien traitors and Sanctify torturers to save Boone between minutely described bouts of morning sickness and queasily interrupted passionate interludes. Despite some unusual role reversals, Robert’s repetitive high schoolish lingo, flat characters and settings, and a stale, pedestrian plot will attract neither romance readers nor science fiction fans. (Mar.)