Alison Aimes-Stolen

We have another new to me author today, with Alison Aimes and Stolen. This is a futuristic story that has some aliens in it too. It’s a nice combo, and one that I really appreciated.

Here’s our story. We start out with a young DaKar who is living with his father, step-mother, and younger half brother. He half Martian and half elithe, which is the ruling Earther families. Because of that, his step-mother hates him, especially since he’s his father’s heir. One day, the family is throwing a huge ball, and DaKar is staring over the rails at everyone, and there is a beautiful girl that he somehow feels very connected to, and when their eyes meet, all he can think is “Minel”.

Fast forward a few years, and DaKar, who is now a Warlord with his mother’s family, has come back to Earth because his father has died, and he’s got to fight with his idiot brother and evil step-mother to get his rightful inheritance. The elithe want to have very little to do with him because he’s a heathen half-breed, but they still want him around, because juicy gossip. He knows that he’s going to have to fight with everyone to get his estate, but his plan is to get it, sell it off, and then go back home to Phobos. At one of the first balls he goes to, he is out in the garden, being really, really, really friendly with another woman when he happens to look up at a balcony and see a beautiful blonde. The two of them connect, and he starts talking dirty to her, but the woman he’s with thinks he’s talking to her. Nope, not so much.

Lady Aurora has been going around to all the big balls and stealing bits of jewelry. It’ss not that she’s a thief, really. She’s just desperate. You see, she has spent the last year living with her horrible, terrible, disgusting, evil stepfather, and she wants nothing more than to escape. But he keeps a very tight grip on her. Very tight. She doesn’t have any money that she can spend and he keeps all her jewelry for her, so she has to steal and pawn things so that she can try to get the money she needs to escape. One night, as she’s trying to make a clean escape, some ladies come into where she is, so she has to sneak out on the balcony so that she can hide. Then she sees a golden skinned man with a woman in the garden, and their eyes meet.

Turns out that they are having a Martian meeting heat, and they have the start of a soul bond going on, but DaKar isn’t interested, and he tells her that he can control it. Aurora is still just drawn to him, and is aware of him, no matter where he is. And no matter how much DaKar wants to hide it, he’s just as drawn to her too.

I thought that Aurora was really brave. She knows that her stepfather is an evil son of a bitch, and she’s scared, but she’s still taking steps to do what she can to get the fuck away from him. She might not be going about it the right way, because it can be hard to tell real from fake, and she has to seek them to a pawnshop, which means she’s not getting anywhere near what they are worth, and frankly, I think her fence is cheating her, a lot. But, with what few freedoms she has and the space she can get, this is what she can do. So, there’s that. I also think that she’s incredibly fierce. She stands up to people, when she can, and she fights back, when she can. Sometimes she has to stand quiet, but only when she has no other choice. I really like her.

DaKar is a good man who has been through a lot and has been hurt a lot. It takes him a minute to get through all that, but no matter what, his heart is in the right place. He wants to take care of all the little people on the estate, and even goes out of his way to hire people his stepmother and brother had fired. No matter what, his plan is to make sure those people are taken care of. He has a deep streak of honor and courage, and he’s generally pretty smart. Sometimes he’s an idiot, but we all are at some point.

Ugh, there are so many fucking assholes in this book. Soooooo many.

OK, that’s all for today. Go check it out! Happy reading!