Jessie Mihalik – Required Reading

Action Adventure, Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction

Chaos Reigning (Consortium Rebellion #3)

May 19, 2020May 12, 2020 Shay Shortt

by Jessie Mihalik

ISBN 978-0-06-280242-2

Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this title from the publisher.

“I dared to dream of more.”

With all her siblings out fighting or spying in the war between House von Hasenburg and House Rockhurst, youngest sister Catarina is stuck at home on Earth, serving as a political surrogate for her conniving parents. Protected and beloved by her older siblings, Cat longs to make a more substantial contribution, but her carefully constructed public mask as a vapid socialite means that all she can really do for House von Hasenburg is marry someone who will back them in the war. But then an invitation from House James to a particularly exclusive party offers Cat the chance to find out if House James was responsible for her brother Ferdinand’s kidnapping. But her older sister Bianca is on to her maneuvering, and she insists on sending two mercenaries, Aoife and Alex, to guard Cat’s back. Only, in order to get Alex into the heart of House James, Cat will have to pretend he is her date, not her body guard.

Like Bianca in Aurora Blazing, Cat has a secret, only in addition to being afraid of being used by their ruthless father, she owes her life to illegal genetic modifications that would make her very existence criminal under Royal Consortium law. Despite the efforts of her older siblings to protect her, Cat has had to become a ruthless dissembler, using social power as a pointed weapon. But the events of Chaos Reigning call for Cat to tear down her carefully crafted public façade, and reveal the intelligence and competence she has been hiding. No doubt the really interesting part of her story comes later, when she has irrevocably revealed the truth, and has to carve a new path forward alongside her ambitious best friend, Ying Yamado.

As a love interest, Alex is more in the tradition of Aurora Blazing’s Ian than Polaris Rising’s Marcus. In fact his main weakness might be that he isn’t sufficiently distinguished, and the fact that he and Cat are keeping secrets from one another means that we don’t really get to know him better. The reader actually knows more about him from his side role in Aurora Blazing than Cat does, and that is still precious little to go on in terms of character development. His main appeal is that he is handsome, and that he will back Cat’s manoeuvres even when they are dangerous. Luckily, I’m a bit of a sucker for a fake dating trope, so I put aside my skepticism and went along for the ride, which was slower burn on the romance, and rollicking in the adventure department.

Consortium Rebellion is a trilogy, making this the final installment in the series. Honestly, it seems like it could go for another book, in order to resolve the Syndicate plotline, not to mention the final fate of the faster than light technology that started the war to begin with. I know I would definitely read a team up novel where the von Hasenberg sisters take on the galaxy together! But it seems that instead Jessie Mihalik will return with a new series about intergalactic bounty hunters, due out in 2022.

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Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction

Aurora Blazing (Consortium Rebellion #2)

October 1, 2019December 14, 2019 Shay Shortt

by Jessie Mihalik

ISBN 978-0-06-28241-5

Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this title from the publisher.

“I would personally storm the gates of hell for any of my brothers or sisters. To claim otherwise was to fundamentally misunderstand me as a person.”

With House von Hasenberg at war with House Rockhurst over the rare mineral called alcubium that will revolutionize faster than light travel, tensions are running high, even in the neutral territory of Serenity. When Bianca, daughter of House von Hasenberg, is attacked, and her brother, Ferdinand, heir to the House is kidnapped, the Rockhursts seem like the natural suspects, but something more complicated seems to be afoot. Bianca deals in information, and thanks to a cruel experiment conducted by her dead husband, she has unique code cracking abilities that no one can know about, not even Ian Bishop, Director of Security for House von Hasenberg. Bianca knows that together they would be an unstoppable force, if only she could convince Ian to stop protecting her, and start working with her to find Ferdinand and bring him home before it is too late.

In the second volume of the Consortium Rebellion trilogy, Jessie Mihalik shifts her attention to the recently widowed Bianca, who is still recovering from the abuse she endured at the hands of her husband in an unhappy political marriage. Bianca is back home in House von Hasenberg, quietly working intelligence for her family, while rumours fly through Consortium society that she murdered her husband. Bianca pretends to mourn, when in fact she is guarding a deadly secret; Gregory was using her as a guinea pig in a science experiment. Thanks to his work, she can pick up and decrypt electronic signals, though the barrage often leaves her head pounding, and her guts churning with nausea. Even her father cannot be let in on the secret, because the ruthless Albrecht von Hasenberg has already demonstrated that he will use his daughters to gain an edge, however small, and the technology implanted in Bianca’s body is priceless. Her time trapped in Gregory’s lab has left her physically weakened, but those limitations only make her a more compelling heroine. What she lacks in physical stamina she more than makes up for with wits and poise.

Like Polaris Rising, Aurora Blazing is as much romance as sci-fi adventure, and will appeal most to readers who enjoy both. Bianca’s love interest is Ian, the mysterious Head of Security. Seven years ago, he was her bodyguard, but back then he spurned her advances to further his determination to rise quickly through the ranks. Ian is somewhat less of an alpha love interest than Marcus Loch was in the first volume, which I found more appealing, though his insistence on ignoring Bianca’s wishes was still infuriating. After being spurned seven years earlier, establishing trust is key if Bianca and Ian are ever to have a relationship, and this is made more difficult by the fact that he technically works for her conniving father, who decidedly does not have her best interests at heart. The tension between them is a slow, cautious burn that lasts through the book.

The first volume of the series focused on Bianca’s younger sister, Ada, and her love interest, Marcus, a supersoldier who escaped a secret government experiment. Ada, Marcus and their allies have a role to play in Aurora Blazing, though Bianca and Ian take center stage. I enjoyed the sibling relationships portrayed between the von Hasenbergs in Polaris Rising, and that continues to be a strong feature in Aurora Blazing. Ada provides critical support to Bianca in her mission to save their oldest brother, and Bianca’s twin Benedict also features, though not as much as I would have hoped. The most interesting glimpse is Catarina, the youngest von Hasenberg, who all the older siblings have strived to protect from their parents’ brutal machinations. But Catarina is beginning to chafe at being constantly sheltered and sidelined, despite her obvious smarts and resourcefulness. She will not be content to sit by for long. The final installment of the trilogy will follow Catarina’s adventures, as her father determines to make her a political match that will solidify their House’s position in the war with the Rockhursts—but Catarina has other plans. Look for Chaos Reigning in May 2020.

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Action Adventure, Romance, Science Fiction

Polaris Rising

March 12, 2019March 10, 2019 Shay Shortt

by Jessie Mihalik

ISBN 978-0-06-280238-5

Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this title from the publisher.

“My reckless side, the side that had prompted me to run away from home rather than marry a practical stranger for political power, that side knew I would land on the planet. I had to know if my hunch was correct.”

For two years, Ada von Hasenberg has been on the run from her family, one of the three High Houses of the Royal Consortium that rules the universe. But her luck has finally run short, and when she is captured by bounty hunters, she knows that if she doesn’t escape, she will finally have to return home and make a political marriage of her parents’ choosing. As the fifth of six children, that is really all she is good for to House von Hasenberg. Then she is locked in a cell with Marcus Loch, the criminal better known as the Devil of Fornax Zero, an ex-soldier who reportedly slaughtered his own unit before going on the run. They are two of the most wanted people in the universe, with a fortune in bounties on their heads, but perhaps together they will have what it takes to escape.

The protagonist, Ada, was by far my favourite part of Polaris Rising. Despite her highly political upbringing, she is smart, but not cold, and tough but not bloodthirsty. She can fight, but it isn’t her preferred way of doing business. She takes everything her House taught her with the intention of using it to make her into a spy in a political marriage, and instead turns it towards pursuing her freedom. She did, however, read as somewhat older than the twenty-three the author pegs her at. She acknowledges her chemistry with Loch, but doesn’t fancy herself in love, though she is worried by the fact that she could be.

The love interest, Loch, on the other hand, I could take or leave. He is, in the romance parlance, an alpha, and I don’t tend to enjoy the jealousy and posturing that comes with that type. I found it pretty hard to warm to him any further after he called Ada a bitch in their first real argument. Jessie Mihalik softens him in other ways, such as repeated use of enthusiastic consent, but I was still fairly indifferent overall. Your mileage may vary!

Polaris Rising sits at the intersection of science fiction adventure and romance, and probably requires a reader who enjoys both of these genres. There is too much world-building and adventure for someone who is just in it for the romance, and too many romance tropes for someone who is just in it for the science fiction. This includes such contrivances as getting the hero and the heroine in bed together by the necessity of warming one another up after escaping across an icy planet. But the adventure includes a good mystery, as Ada tries to figure out why Richard Rockhurst, a younger son of one of the other High Houses, is suddenly so desperate to marry her, and get his hands on her dowry.

One of the aspects I enjoyed most about Polaris Rising was Ada’s relationship with her siblings, though we only see her substantially interact with her sister, Bianca, and in passing with Bianca’s twin brother. Instead of opting for a fierce or bitter sibling rivalry driven by the political maneuvering of the High Houses, Mihalik instead opts to depict a tight, supportive bond. When their parents try to pit them against one another the von Hasenberg siblings only draw closer, guarding one another’s backs. A second volume is due out later this year, which will follow the adventures of Ada’s widowed sister, Bianca, and House von Hasenberg’s mysterious head of security, Ian.