Moonsteed

by Manda Benson

Sergeant Verity killed the wrong man, and now she has until tomorrow morning, or 16.7 Earth days, to stop the right one and bring justice to Callisto.Verity works with specially bred horses as part of a pseudomilitary research group on a newly terraformed moon of Jupiter. Hunting down a spy in possession of stolen data is just another day's work. She's not impressed with Vladimir, a timid scholar who arrives at the research base with a beautiful stallion he has genetically engineered. But when her superiors start disappearing and an arrest warrant is issued on Verity herself for spying, she discovers the spy was not what he appeared. She's going to need the help of both Vladimir and the virtual ghost of the dead spy to find and stop the mastermind who is playing games with them all.

Genres: Romance

198 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Manda Benson is a scientist and writer from the Midlands of England who has previously worked in research and taught science at undergraduate and A-Level. Manda's work includes:
Pilgrennon's Children, a technothriller series about an autistic girl with the power to mentally control computers and other devices, who discovers that she and a number of other children came about as a result of unethical genetic and technological experiments;
The Beasts trilogy, which explores a future vision of the age-old symbiosis between humans and animals, set in a meritocratic society where scientific advance has come at the cost of a widening gap between the haves and have-nots;
A handful of standalone science-fiction and thriller novels and novellas and middle-grade-children's novels and stories, and;
Numerous short fiction and nonfiction pieces in magazines and anthologies.

Reviews

[Janice Clark]

Sergeant Verity is a prickly character. Arrogant, ambitious, brave, highly skilled and intelligent but lacking any sense of tact, she doesn't care much for people in general nor for most animals, but does love horses. She does lighten up and become more human in the course of the book as she learns that some of her loyalties were misplaced and her assumptions weren't necessarily valid.

What she does have is a sense of honor and duty, as she puts her life on the line to foil a political coup.

This is a fast-paced science fiction thriller, with some spectacular world-building and lots of hold-your-breath exciting moments. I galloped through it.

[Nathalie]

A well-plotted and inventive sci-fi novel that is researched well enough to offset the outlandish premise of horses and Samurai-style fighting on an ice moon of Jupiter. It's not excessively long either, and the strong pacing and mystery to be solved made it an enjoyable afternoon read for me.

[namericanwordcat]

Didn't finish