Review: Alien Interrupted by Iris Astres

Title: Alien Interrupted

           Ellora’s Cave Aeon Series

Author: Iris Astres

Release Date: January 6, 2012

Publisher: Ellora’s Cave

Category: Paranormal Romance, SciFi

Type: Kindle

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Book Blurb:

Is it wise to have sex with a tall, gorgeous space alien who used to be your cat? The question barely has a chance to flitter through Hannah’s mind before she’s overwhelmed by temptation and writhing under the strong, hot man in her bed. And while the thought of goodbye sometimes makes her question the decision, life with a handsome lover does not disappoint.Yom Lister has proven no better at reasoning himself out of his lust. Somehow he’s managed to pair-bond with an Earthling—the intensity and speed of his connection to Hannah setting him completely off-balance. In one unthinking moment, Yom ends his state-sponsored vacationon Earth and finds himself a traitor to the planet he once saved.Before he’s arrested, however, he plans to make the best of the insanity. He has good reason to reap the rewards of Hannah’s willing body while he can—their impending separation isn’t only inevitable, it’s potentially deadly.

Book Excerpt:

The kiss was warm, soft, distinctly naughty, but also brief. The man clearly knew better than to hold it long enough for her to push at him again. Before she’d made so much as a sound, he stepped back, touching his thumb to where his lips had been, while his long fingers feathered across her furrowed brow.

“No more frowning,” he murmured. “There’s no need. Oliver is fine, and more importantly Richard is gone.” He gave the empty hallway a look of satisfaction before returning his startlingly full attention to her.

In her shock, Hannah stood stock-still and stared. Too close to get a perspective on the whole, her mind struggled to make sense of the parts. A swell of muscle here. A dip of sinew there. Skin and more skin. Smooth and warm. Beauty. Perfection. Unreal. Very real. So alive. His hands had lifted from her face and left a trail of sensation to play across her cheekbones and forehead, while the unexpected kiss lingered on her lips.

In the pit of her stomach, where there should have been panic, Hannah felt a buzzing excitement grow—a feeling better suited to a game show contestant than a woman with a naked intruder in her bedroom.

Naked. Intruder. She ground the words inside her brain, looking for the customary clang of her alarm. Nothing happened. Only shallow breathing and that long, wondering perusal of warm flesh.

The man seemed happy enough to let her stare. Happy enough to stare back, in fact. She examined his expression for signs of a threat or a leer and found only dazzled recognition. Unquestioning approval. He was looking at her the way a soldier might look at an empress, or a druid priest his sacred monolith—as though he’d just found something mythical and prized.

Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. How could she know when no one had ever looked at her quite that way before?

Eventually the force of his complete approval got to her, making recent emotion bubble inside her, threatening to spill. Emotional spill being the last thing Hannah ever needed, she jerked her chin down sharply, breaking contact with those dazzling eyes, and pressed her palm against the muscled chest in front of her to keep the man at arm’s length while she searched her brain for some response.

I’m right here, he’d said. The crazy claim triggered enough indignation to open Hannah’s mouth and make it move.

“You’re not saying you’re my cat, are you?”

Warm skin shifted uncertainly against her fingers while the accused worked through the accusation. “I am your cat,” he concluded, the pleasant contours of his voice sounding vaguely foreign despite the flawless diction. “Or at least I was,” he amended. “Now I’m a man.”

Dialogue Highlight:

One step forward and Hannah was stopped by the unmistakable sensation of a hot and heavy stare crawling over her pale skin. The impression was palpable, odd. When she turned, her gaze locked on a pair of startlingly beautiful eyes, which belonged to as gorgeous a creature as Hannah had ever seen.

He’d obviously had his eye on her for some time, because before she could check her naked reaction, he was moving purposefully forward, drawing close enough for her to touch. Hannah watched his big, sleek body lower itself to the ground in front of her and stretch submissively at her feet. That was when it happened—the perfect moment when Hannah’s unmanageable mind disappeared into the Zen-like clarity of pure want.

Tossing her bag into a corner, she sank to her knees. The unfinished floor was rough and cool beneath her skin. She sat on her heels, leather pumps curled beneath her for balance, and reached for him.

“Ah.” Lalita took a quiet step closer. “I see you found our star attraction.”

“He found me actually.” Hannah ran a bold hand down the perfect body and stared into the jewel-green eyes that calmly considered her. “My God, he’s gorgeous,” she said.

“The most beautiful one here,” Lalita agreed.

That he was. He had to be. Hannah felt the warmth of him—the perfect bone structure of his angular face, the ripple of shoulder, the long supple spine. There she paused and bent her head to press her lips against his neck. “What’s a handsome specimen like you doing in a place like this?”

Her only answer was a deep, throaty purr.

“Not that it’s a bad place,” she amended, a small apologetic smile on her lips. “It’s a really nice shelter. But this guy doesn’t look like any stray I’ve ever seen.”

Lalita’s dark eyes narrowed as she pulled her lips to one side and sucked air through her teeth. “Someone ditched him after hours,” she said. “There are temporary cages in front of the shelter to accommodate the dickwads who’d rather not have to look anyone in the eye while they’re abandoning their designer pets. Those people should be shot.” The girl made a gun with two fingers and picked the imaginary culprits off, one by one. “Still,” she allowed, “bringing them here is better than leaving them on the side of the road, I guess.”

Hannah sat back, intrigued. The obvious Indian heritage behind the shelter worker’s striking features hadn’t prepared her for something quite so punk-cum-doom metal. But now that she saw the persona emerge, she had to admit it totally worked. The two of them could have been good friends, she thought. Back in college, when Hannah’s friendship mojo had been in full swing.

The large cat tugged her back to the present with his forepaws, licking her fingers with his wet, raspy tongue. “God,” she whispered. “What kind of lunatic would abandon you?”

*****

“So what do you think?” The young girl straightened, shifting gears. “Do we start the paperwork?”

Hannah straightened too. This was it, then. Irreversible decision time. “This can’t be your first cat.”

“It is,” Hannah admitted. “Are you surprised?”

“Totally.” The girl’s head tilted like a connoisseur’s. “I’d have placed you at a minimum of three. So what’s the story?”

Hannah spread her hands and shrugged. “Rootlessness basically. Three different degrees at three different schools. A lot of Europe after that. I haven’t felt settled until this year.”

As always, she left out the more maudlin part of her bio. No one needed to hear that the family Lab had run away while Hannah had been sitting at her daddy’s funeral. That particular trauma had soured her on pets for quite some time. And still, even dead set against another such potential heartache, the animal lover inside lingered.

She’d spent countless parties communing in corners with displeased Persians instead of out with other guests. And she certainly wasn’t above timing her exercise for prime dog walking hours so she could cop a canine snuggle on the sly. Time to come out of the pet-loving closet and get one of her own.

“Mraw,” the cat agreed.

“Does he have a name?” Hannah asked

“Not officially. I call him Oliver.”

“Oliver?”

“Short for Oliver Klozehoff.”

Hannah arched a brow at the oddly corny pun. All of her clothes off—ha ha. “Are you sure he’s not waiting to go home with you?” She pulled the thick wool of her sweater over her icy fingers and rose awkwardly to her feet, a wary rival’s eye squinting first at the slight young girl then down at the playboy cat who’d clearly been using her for sport. Lalita caught her expression and smirked.

“Under different circumstances I might fight you for him, but my roomies wouldn’t go for it. Besides—” She sneered at the cat who was now stretching his long body up Hannah’s bare leg and staring meaningfully into her eyes. “He’s never made an ass out of himself like that for me. You really need to shoot him down or take him home, you know.”

More than anything, Hannah wanted to do the latter. She wanted it so much it was tripping that stupid alarm again. Stubbornly, she bit her lip and tried to shake the second thoughts out of her head.

But then again, and with all due respect to the pleasures of now, a cat was a living thing—not a new book or film to be analyzed. She couldn’t shelve it, forget it and get back to it later. There was no delete key here. Cats were part of real life, where real things could happen. Even if nothing happened, they didn’t live forever and Hannah had dealt with a lifetime’s worth of death before puberty. Or not dealt with it, maybe. Either way, she wasn’t up for more.

“Sorry, Ollie.” Lalita dipped and scooped the cat into her long, thin arms. “I guess your Betty’s just a tease.”

“I’m not a tease!” Hannah protested. She looked into the blazing eyes of Oliver Klozehoff as he struggled in Lalita’s grip. “Hand him over,” she said, a thrill of iron in her voice to match the sudden steel in her spine. “I’m taking him. He’s mine.”

Review:

ALIEN INTERRUPTED was a bit of a stretch for me to begin with. I read about how an “alien” changes into a cat and then reveals himself to have mind-blowing sex with his human “owner”. Sounds a little odd and I wasn’t sure it would work. But I gave it a try and found myself pleasantly surprised by this story.

Yom is a national hero in his world having saved the planet from an imminent threat and has now been forced to take a vacation. But these aliens are unknown to Earth and so take vacations in various forms. One of the most popular forms is a household cat. Yom is shifted into a feline and before too long he is setting his sights on the one owner he is interested in, Hannah. But it has taken Yom a while to find Hannah, having escaped several other families that tried to adopt him, only to return to the shelter in a quest to find that perfect owner. Kind of a funny twist of you ask me.

Hannah has been abandoned by pretty much everyone she’s known her whole life and taking a step to get a pet is a huge deal for her.  When she sees Yom, or “Oliver” as she names him, she struggles with the final decision to adopt him, and eventually takes the plunge. As a result, over the course of a few weeks, Yom gets to know Hannah well. He learns her routines and witnesses her intimate play with her box of toys, and especially enjoys curling up with her numerous times through the day.

But when Hannah makes an attempt at a relationship with a co-worker, who she actually holds little desire for, Yom breaks, unwilling to see her consummate a relationship that is doomed to fail and certain to leave Hannah unfulfilled. So Yom does the only thing he can – he offers Hannah his body and all of the pleasures that go with it. Errr … but as a man ~ not as a cat any longer. Took me a sec to wrap my head around it, I’ll admit.

As you can guess, Hannah is a bit perplexed at the change of situation, but Yom’s delicious body soon wears her down and you pretty much know what happens next. Except Yom’s species and Hannah’s species have never created a known pair-bond before, yet these two do. And at a very high cost. Yom has broken the highest law ever, not revealing his identity or planet’s existence. Because of this treasonous act, Yom is facing judgment and will soon be whisked away from Hannah.

The bond is strong between the two, but the longer Hannah denies her growing love, the more risk she poses to Yom. And ultimately, when the fact that he revealed himself becomes known, there will be nothing either of them can do to stop Yom from being extracted. The fate of the future these two may or may not have is left entirely up to the judgment of a species of another planet.

I feel like I have told you all more than I should have, but I also didn’t reveal all that much. I like Hannah as an introvert and Yom as the complete opposite who rises to the challenge of making Hannah see just how beautiful and special she is. And his attention to her mind and body is exactly what she needs to break down her frosty defenses set in place after years of disconnectedness. Ironically, Yom and Hannah are very similar in lifestyle. Both workaholics committed to their jobs, left with basically no personal life. The difference being that Yom recognizes Hannah’s potential to break outside of her shell given the right incentives. Ultimately, Yom changes Hannah for the better. He sets her on a path that she would have completely bypassed otherwise. I enjoyed that Hannah transformed into a more assertive individual and became more confident with herself. Kind of a sweet notion that meeting the right guy can enhance many things within one’s life.

The only thing I disliked was that Yom seemed to digress a bit. I am not sure how to explain that statement without compromising parts of the story. I guess I could say that he started out dominant in showing Hannah what she deserved from a man, but ended up dependent on her (mostly due to the pair-bonding). I like my males to have some weaknesses, but this weakness seemed to take away just a bit of Yom’s masculinity. Given the circumstances, the flaw is understandable. And I guess in some way that little snippet of masculinity being sucked away is actually somewhat endearing when you look at it from the bonding perspective. Thankfully, Ms. Astres ended the story with Yom back on top. *coughs* If you get my drift. Now that I write this out, I guess it is not such a negative after all. At first Yom’s limitation hit me as “bleck” and now that I am evaluating it, I am seeing it as more of an enhancement to his character. *whispers* I love writing reviews – especially when I get in arguments with myself and have to work out how I really felt about something. *nods* Yes, I get in arguments with myself. Gets pretty interesting in my brain sometimes. *wink*

Overall, I enjoyed my time spent with Ms. Astres and her characters. At somewhere around 120 pages, the reader will fly through this book. And I suppose I should mention that the sex was scorching hot. Yom and Hannah burn up the sheets many times throughout this fascinating story. As part of only a handful of SciFi romances I have read, ALIEN INTERRUPTED was a pleasure to read. I just might seek out more SciFi romance in the future. For those of you who are fans of SciFi, Romance, Erotica, and most especially all three wrapped up in one, I recommend ALIEN INTERRUPTED as a quick, entertaining read that satisfies with smexy, paired with twists from another world.

(EBook copy provided by author for review.)