Review by masterhawk88 -- The Bonding by Imogen Keeper

[masterhawk88]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Bonding" by Imogen Keeper.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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The Bonding by Imogen Keeper, is a saucy scifi romance novel. An interesting universe, unique take on damsel in distress plot, and plenty of well written… sauce. It unfortunately suffers from a large plot hole, and a bland male lead, but is despite those flaws a good read.

Along with 97 other women, her father, and her betrothed Nissa, queen-designate of Trianni is put in to cryo sleep. Launched in to space to drift in hope some benevolent alien will find them and help them save their world from a group of off worlders who are slaughtering their people in droves. What they never accounted for however was it would take nearly five hundred years for someone to find the first pod.

Tam, an Argentus warrior and pilot, is patrolling through space when he comes in contact with something he hadn’t seen since becoming a man. A woman. After freeing Nissa from her pod he discovers she’s sick, and will die unless he bonds himself to her for life. After losing nearly all the females of his race to a plague, he’s not about to lose this one. Once they’ve “bonded” he returns with her to his peoples space station where they begen to the task of saving the rest of her people.

While I enjoyed the book, there were certain things that niggled at me. Tam, the male protagonist seems to have no other personality that the protection of Nissa and her desires. It’s possible he was always a super protective doting type of man, but with the lack of back story for him it left me feeling he just a bit bland. Thankfully the female lead has no such issues. Nissa is a well developed character with her own hopes and desires outside of Tam’s bedroom.

The book also suffers from a plot hole in “the bond” itself. It’s never explained how it saves the women from “blue tinge” nor does it seem to have any real benefit to either person in the bonded pair aside from extreme sexual endurance. Not the worst thing story wise, but I’d have liked it to be fleshed out more.

Those two complaints aside, the book is well written. The story engaging enough to keep me entertained, and the universe it’s set in making me want to see more of it. Unlike many books in the erotic/romance genre I’ve read I never felt like the story was just an excuse for the protagonists to get naked.

I give The Bonding three out of four stars. The universe is interesting, the female protagonist engaging and the sauce… well saucy.

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The Bonding
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