Slave: The Cat Star Chronicles #1 [Mass Market Paperback]

...But I couldn't. It's a great premise, but Brooks does not fulfill its potential. Here are some problems I found.
One, Brooks writing style feels choppy and unpolished. Exclamation points abound. The dialogue between Jack and Cat feels very forced.
And cheese-y.
Two, they fall in love way too quick. Best I can tell they're with each other a day or two, and begin professing their love. Why? Who can say? He gorgeous and she saved him. Maybe that's enough for Jack and Cat, but to fall in love along with them, I needed them to explore each other's personalities. And that brings me to my third problem.
Jack's continued use of words like slimball and scumbag, and other "old" earth sayings irritated me. She had to explain them to Cat, but I knew what they meant, so I just got bored. Perhaps she's supposed to be funny and snarky, but just comes off as annoying. And what she lets get done to her nose by strangers--too gross.
But even grosser is her obsession with bottling and selling Cat's amazing body fluids. I guess this is supposed to reveal to us readers that she really is a shrewd trader at heart, always looking to make a buck. But it was gross. And this idea crosses her mind again and again and again. And again. Plus, how romantic is it to want to market his you know what? Or distribute it among the female population of another planet to ensure that the cat-people live on? (While the unsuspecting male population thinks the kittens are theirs.)
I wanted to like it, but the more I think about it, the less I do.

I knew when the the male organ was mentioned on page 5 this book was going to be interesting. Sadly, it turned out to not be interesting in a good way. I think the author created an interesting universe with interesting people, but everything else was just a mess, starting with the way it was written. I didn't find Jack to be a very interesting person to have to listen to throughout the ENTIRE BOOK. I was really hoping to hear something from Cat's POV because I imagine his life story was way more interesting.

Also, if it's a series about his people and his home world why *isn't* it from his perspective, at least some of the time? Plus, the author explains things OVER and OVER again. All "old Earth words" and different people. I got it the first time...also, ET? Really? Do you think ET and Pirates of the Caribbean are going to exist into the future so that people mention them like they just occurred? I don't think so. Do yourself a favor and pass. Very sophmoric and annoying.

Slave is told from trader Jacinth aka Jack's point of view. After crisscrossing the galaxy for six years, the trail of Jack's kidnapped sister leads to a nearby planet where women are slaves chained to their men, and is there no way for Jack to pass as a man due to exposed nature of the men's attire. So, though Jack abhors slavery, she decides to buy a 'master' to avoiding being herself enslaved while trying to locate her sister. Jack ends up purchasing an impressive naked feline humanoid male, who is gorgeous even beneath the dirt, and apparently fearsome -- considering that he is chained hand, foot, neck and groin. When his intent to spend all his effort trying to escape makes Jack decide to cut her losses, she frees him, gives him money and sends him on his way. So with no master Jack needs to figure out plan B. But fortunately for Jack, the slave's pride doesn't allow him to be indebted to Jack so he agrees to help and now with amazing `Cat' to aid her the rescue is on.

Cat is incredibly attracted to Jack, and though Jack resists for a bit because she needs to stay focused on saving her sister and doesn't want to be distracted, when she finally gives in she's hooked. Cat's almost extinct race was very sensual and Cat's decided that now that he has his freedom he wants to be a lover not a fighter, and would happily spend all his time `mating'. This along with the setup for the world where Jack's sister is enslaved -- the male's attire and the women being chained to their man so that they are always on hand to calm their volatile males down by `channeling' the violent energy into more `gratifying' pursuits --ensures that there is a heavy concentration of erotic content.

While this book was much more on the erotic side than what I usually read -- if a book on the light and humorous side can be called erotic-- Slave didn't take itself too seriously so it was entertaining. Once Jack learns the secret for how this odd cultural twist developed on the planet and the women's true role in their society, it ends ups oddly making sense. Somehow even with all the `extra curricular activity' going on the author did manage to squeeze in a decent story and to flesh out her leads. Since the author tells the story in first person, even though this is definitely sci-fi, it almost has the feel of current urban fantasy, mostly because Jack is extremely competent and fits that larger than life urban fantasy heroine mold. The romance between Jack and Cat is pretty good since Cat does a decent job of verbalizing his feelings to Jack, but it loses a bit of steaminess by not allowing us a peek inside the Cats's head -- seeing Cat's attraction to Jack from his point of view would have kicked that up to a sizzle.

Though Cat and Jack's romance runs to completion here, Slave is the first in the Cat Star Chronicles and the next book Warrior: The Cat Star Chronicles moves to another survivor of Cat's destroyed world, wonder what the setup for that one will be?

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