Victoria Lynn Chamberlain… at two, she was abducted by an alien race, the Regulians… at nine, her world literally explodes when the Regulians returned, destroying Earth. She and her Aunt are the only survivors thanks to another alien race, the Carinians. Now she’s eighteen, a new graduate from their top medical school, and is ready to claim her life mate. Lucas, the handsome Carinian pilot that saved her all those years… cycles… ago.
Major Lucas Matthew Zafar is a decorated pilot for the Coalition who has worked hard for every promotion, earned every decoration, despite his father being High Admiral. Nine cycles ago, he crashed on an alien world and discovered his life mate, a nine-cycle girl with flaming red hair and sparkling green eyes. She captivates everyone around her with her strength and determination. She is his world, or will be once she grows up. When he’s injured in an explosion, he discovers that his wait is finally over, for Victoria is more than grown up.
Together they discover what it truly means to be life mates. That’s it’s about doing what’s best for the other even if it’s not best for you. That you have to do more than just love, you have to trust and be willing to sacrifice things you never thought you would. And if you are lucky and the ancestors are watching over you, you just might get everything you’ve ever dreamed of...
Can you hear it? BANG, BANG, BANG! This is me hitting my head in frustration at ANOTHER book by good writer gone wrong. If this is an example of EDITED book, then please, M.K Eidem, FIRE YOUR EDITOR AND FIND SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT EDITING MEANS! You have great potentials - please don't allow your journey as an author to be ruined by presenting to readers sloppy finished product.
I really enjoyed Victoria’s Challenge, another hit for M.K. Eidem after the fantastic Cassandra’s Challenge. Here we are in Carinia again, nine years after Earth’s destruction and Cassandra and Victoria’s rescue by Admiral Zafar and his son Lucas.
It’s now Victoria and Lucas’s turn and they have to learn how to live together as life mates. Victoria Chamberlain is a mature eighteen, having experienced much in her short life, and has just graduated from a top medical school. She wants to claim her life mate, so follows Major Lucas Zaffar back to the Retribution. I loved to see they grow as a couple. Victoria is a mature and decisive woman, strong independent women that knows what she wants; Lucas is a very nice guy but carrying some insecurities (that after a few bruises he is able to put behind). He has stayed mostly away from Victoria, waiting for her to grow up. So he will have many (good) surprises, as he gets to know her again. As should be expected, there are miscommunications but after a rough start together they are ready to face many hurdles.
Victoria's Challenge has everything I think anyone would wish to read about in a science-fiction romance: accidents and recovery, rescue and reunion, space battles, conspiracies revealed, danger, mayhem, good and evil, and finally a happy ending. There is plenty of adventure, twists and turns and suspense, all with a plenty of romance.
We meet most of the characters from Cassandra’s Challenge and it's good to catch up with Cassandra and William Zaffar, Jotham, Barak, Amina and many others. M.K. Eidem improved the editing problems, although there are still problems.
Really good story and second book of Imperial series. This story focuses on Cassandra's niece, Victoria, who is now 18 and all grown up an ready to claim her mate, Lucas, who is the son of William Zafar (Cassandra's husband). I really loved this story and am hoping to get the story of of Victoria's best friend and Lucas's best friend and the future king.
. Tori the special snowflake and Lucas, her life mate. Another fun space opera... long, long audiobook. But unfortunately the same annoying readers as the first book, especially Victoria's voice. *Grating*
Lucas has kept his distance the last 9 years, knowing that they are life mates and not wanting to also be her care giver while she grows up. He is now 28 and she is 18. But the distance between them has given her hurtful doubts about his love for her.
But anyways, more Regulian evilness, and no, we still don't actually meet any. More traitors lying in wait and conniving in the background. A rescue mission and a few misunderstandings with a little 'crazy stalker' thrown in and it's much like the first book, but flows a little better.
Todo un reto terminar el libro cuando odiaba al héroe!
Victoria's challenge de M.K. Eidem Serie Imperial/ Challenge libro 2
Mí humilde opinión:
Victoria Lynn Chamberlain a los dos años fue secuestrada por una raza alienígena, los Regulians. A los nueve, su mundo literalmente explota cuando los Regulians regresan, destruyendo la Tierra.
Ella y su tía son las únicas supervivientes gracias a otra raza alienígena, los Carinianos.
Ahora tiene dieciocho años, se ha graduado en la mejor escuela de Medicina y está lista para reclamar a su compañero de vida.
Lucas, el guapo piloto cariniano que la salvó todos estos años, ciclos, hace tiempo.
El Mayor Lucas Matthew Zafar es un piloto condecorado de la Coalición que ha trabajado duro para cada promoción, se ha ganado todas las condecoraciones, a pesar de que su padre era Alto Almirante.
Hace nueve ciclos, se estrelló en un mundo alienígena y descubrió a su compañera de vida, una chica de nueve ciclos con el pelo rojo brillante y ojos verdes brillantes.
Ella cautiva a todos los que la rodean con su fuerza y determinación. Ella es su mundo, o lo será cuando crezca.
Cuando se lesiona en una explosión, descubre que su espera ha terminado, ya que Victoria es más que adulta.
Juntos descubren lo que realmente significa ser compañeros de vida. Se trata de hacer lo mejor para el otro, aunque no sea lo mejor para ti. Que tienes que hacer algo más que amar, tienes que confiar y estar dispuesto a sacrificar las cosas que nunca pensaste que tendrías que sacrificar.
Y si tienes suerte y los antepasados te protegen, es posible que consigas todo lo que siempre has soñado.
Victoria's Challenge es el segundo libro de la serie Challenge y sentí que era muy largo de nuevo!
Ojalá la autora lo dejara por la mitad de páginas.
Buena historia, idea general, pero hubo errores y en partes hubo otras cosas que no permitieron fluir mejor la lectura.
A mí me costó y me frustró terminar el libro.
Estaba muy emocionada por llegar a la historia de Lucas y Victoria. Ella tenía 9 en el primer libro y lucas 18, era una versión de Jacob Black& Renesmee de Crepúsculo. Quería ver cómo la autora manejaba este tema años después y...
Odié a Lucas! Es de mal carácter. Sí, el tipo sufría de heridas serías pero la manera de tratar a Victoria antes y después de que tuviera el accidente es imperdonable! Gritarle cosas como insultos, cállate y no me toques?! Tratar así a tu compañera de vida?
No pude quererlo después de eso. No hubo una disculpa que me convenciera.
Y qué fue de esa chica rascándole el pecho que vio Victoria? Nunca se habló de eso luego. Muy raro.
Me gusta un buen drama en los libros pero este fue solo frustrante!
Lucas de repente se convirtió en un gruñón loco enojado y le dijo a Victoria cosas que no quería decir, que era para que lo vea como hombre y qué se yo, la cosa es que termina lastimándola y alejándola, todo esto que causó varios capítulos de lucha y angustias tan tontos, infantil a más no poder que quería abandonar el libro.
Victoria me gustó. Me gustó su madurez y fuerza. Fue ella la que mantuvo la esperanza de estar con Lucas algún día.
Ella sabía que era su pareja de vida. Se mantuvo en contacto. Era su fuerza en momentos difíciles ya que no todos la aceptan.
Me desconcertó que relacionarse con Victoria, una mujer aunque humana, sobrina de la reina, inteligente y buena que salva vidas puede ser vista tan mal o arruinar la carrera de alguien.
Y cómo que no tenía verdaderos amigos? Amina dónde estaba? Su mejor amiga de niñas.
De nuevo extrañé un poco más de ciencia ficción aquí.
Al final tuve que luchar un poco para terminar este libro, no tenía una historia muy fuerte, todo giraba en torno a seguir la relación de los personajes principales que era bastante frustrante. Sobretodo cuando no me caía bien el héroe.
Realmente esperaba algo mejor en acción y romance.
Nine years after book 1, Victoria is 18 and ready to claim Lucas. Too bad he's being a real asshole about it. I found myself cringing at some of things he did...made him hard to like at first.
After an accident, Victoria's medical skills come in handy but she thinks this will just push Lucas further away.
The rescue was quite good and I enjoyed getting to know the new Chamberlains.
Re-read. This is definitely not as good as the first one. The first half is so ‘campy’, just plug your nose and get past that part like taking bad medicine. Once the halfway mark hits and they go back to , it finally becomes a good story!
Yes, Lucas still annoyed me in the beginning. However, holy cow, this man waited NINE YEARS for her. No other women, no nothing, just focusing on his job and waiting for her to grow up.
Slightly better intimate scenes, still fairly vanilla though.
I would LOVE to read a story of any humans that survived on Earth. I’m sure there were plenty of underground bunkers and government facilities still limping along.
****** Original review:
I struggled the first third of this book. Lucas was a complete drama queen at the beginning. While I can understand where he was coming from, the drama felt forced and completely unnecessary. Once I got past chapter eleven or twelve, I was hooked into the story and it took off!
I love that we get to see the characters from the first story and the continuing political battles. I did roll my eyes a bit that
On the good side, the writing is much better than the first book, with the head-hopping much better controlled. The "challenges" that are faced are inventive and very well executed. The exploration of front-line medicine was excellent.
On the bad side, how can both MCs be TSTL for the first half of the book. Repeatedly they make the same mistakes. As with the first book, the bad guys are dopey, and the sex scenes are somewhat perfunctory.
But still this is a very good space opera and I recommend it.
My brain has latched on to M.K. Eidem's books as a new special interest, which... sure, I guess?
I could write whole papers about the gender roles and dynamics in this series and in her Tornians and Kalizians (sp?) series. Their societies are even more patriarchal than mine (raised Christian in the American Midwest), women have very specific expectations regarding motherhood, there's internalized misogyny out the wazoo... the list goes on.
And yet, this is where my brain lingers. I think it's the strong, protective heroes along with the irrefutable proof of soulmates in all of her books that does it for me. It's like Ruby Dixon, but with some political intrigue as a spice.
There’s a good and accurate plot summary given above, so I’m just going to skip that part and tell you what I liked (and didn’t like) about the book:
What I liked: The author has a gift for making you care about her characters and for conveying their emotions. Victoria is a smart and strong heroine who knows what she wants. She’s very confident in her abilities as a doctor but unsure of her personal appeal and therefore rather vulnerable emotionally. Lucas is more of a people person and an excellent pilot and officer. Where Victoria is concerned, he’s got a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease though. Watching their relationship and their trust in each other grow is one of the best parts of the story. We also meet again a lot of the characters from the previous book, Cassandra, Barek, and William among them. I also liked that this was a pretty long book (more than 460 pages according to Amazon). You really get to immerse yourself in the story. The price is more than decent, considering the length.
What I didn’t like: There are some obvious plot holes. Some events in the book are so unlikely as to be almost impossible and there are some pretty big coincidences. I really had to strain to suspend my disbelief in some places. However, I was enjoying the story so much that I didn’t let it bother me overly. Also, there are some editing issues (‘your’ vs. ’you’re’ etc.). It’s still worlds better than the editing in the first book in the series, so it didn’t really detract from the story for me.
Conclusion: This is a futuristic romance, not science-fiction with some romance thrown in. There’s a background story about alien attacks and some traitors but that doesn’t actually start happening until almost halfway into the story. The romance definitely takes precedence. So, if you’re looking for a great romance with well drawn, likable characters and if some inconsistencies don’t bother you, I can only recommend this book.
The hero was 27 and the heroine was 9 years old when the first time they met. He know that she was her soulmate right away and the super genius little girl somehow know it too.
What he did after they beat the enemy? He stay away from her for nine years and waiting for her to grow up. What They did during their separation? She was study hard and become a doctor ( she was an incredible genius girl) while he concentrate with his career.
And guess what? He never touch other woman in those separation years! Sigh... This why I love romance books:)
If you love Sci Fi Romance book, I really recommend this series, as long as you can forgive the grammar and spelling mistake throughout the book.
Well, I take story like this anytime than a perfect but boring writing:)
I couldn't finish this. The first 20% did nothing but annoy me. I get she was pissed, but they could have talked to each other about why they were pissed since they both misunderstood each other. She did not hing but piss me off. She was mad at him, he didn't understand why, and she just refused to fix it on top of taking it out on everyone else. Then, just like the first book, it got boring. She spent weeks angry at him and in his presence for majority of a day to treat him and they still didn't come to terms with each other. The only thing I loved until I stopped reading was Dodge and Lorre. I loved Dodge. I may revisit this book at a later date to try and finish it, but I'm struggling right now just to get to 30% finished.
This one was a lot shorter than the previous book, but that was okay because the journey of Victoria had a few less bumps than Cassie's. It was great to see Victoria all grown up and how mature she was for her age. It was definitely made clear that despite her being only 18 years old, her life experiences made her much older than that. I loved seeing the journey back to Earth and seeing how the planet was after the last book. This story definitely was full of adventure and intrigue and didn't have as much of the political storyline as Cassie's story. All in all, great! I'm looking forward to another story in the future from this author.
Every other page is “you need rest” or “you need to eat” or the overuse of names. If I drank every time “Lucas” was over used I would die of poisoning. It unfortunately makes it an irritating audiobook, especially due to the female narrator.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Victoria has known since she was nine that Lucas Zafar was her life mate. Now that she is eighteen she is finally old enough to claim the man she loves. But things don’t go as smooth as expected. Between dealing with fears, a mad dash to Earth, alien attacks and new traitors, Lucas and Victoria build their relationship.
While I still liked this story I did have some issues with it. I didn’t love Victoria. She was just a little too perfect and I think that is why I didn’t love her. She didn’t seem like a real person. Lucas was supposed to be an alpha male, but he doesn’t really come across as that most of the time. While I did have issues with them, I did still enjoy the romance between them.
While the story is captivating, the characters annoy and upset me frequently. They are super quick to anger and shouting/yelling harsh words. And I really don’t like how Lucas grabs Victoria harshly and shakes her, on multiple occasions. That is just not right. You don’t do that to someone you love. Especially someone who is much physically smaller than you.
I put off reading this for quite some time because in the first book, it always sat wrong with me that she was 9 years old and he was mid/late 20’s and they have that “life mate” connection. It still didn’t sit right for me for the first half of the book either. The repeated “I waited 9 years for you!” was meant to be romantic, but really?? Of course you waited, she was freaking 9 years old. If you hadn’t waited, you would be a predator. You don’t deserve a medal for waiting until she is an adult to start a romantic physical relationship. He is 36, she is 18. It’s still a bit weird.
I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first book in the series, but it was still a good read. The hero annoyed me so much in the beginning with his actions. The misunderstandings were silly and frustrating. Once that was resolved, the plot was much better - clever and complex. I find it hard to believe that the heroine is only 18 years old!! But it worked for the story. The book still needs a good editor - for example I lost count of how many times “too” was used when it was supposed to be “to”. Also there were no separations between paragraphs when the POV changed, which made it harder to follow. Still a good read and a good series. I’d like to read more, but I don’t know who could compare to the Chamberlain and Qwes women.
I'm honestly surprised this has such high reviews. The Lucas from book 1 is no more. In this book he is completely rude and dismissive towards Victoria in the beginning. (All in the name of getting her to see him as a man ?? Doesn't make sense). Then her father is ... I just thought he'd be more excited to see Tori, but instead he's almost hostile towards her. Finally, the book ends without completing the story.
** Furthermore this cover is 😬 **
On a positive note, I really loved Victoria's career in burn medicine. It is always nice to see someone using their skill set. Too often in books we are told someone is a doctor only to never see them do anything medical related.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Just finished book 2 and loved it. This follows book 1 nine years after Earth is destroyed and Victoria has matured into a beautiful, smart, sassy woman like her Aunt Cassie. She has waited 9 cycles (years) and is looking forward to reconnecting with Lucas, her life mate, but of course not everything goes as planned. The battle with the Regulians continues as Ms Eidem brings together her characters I've grown to love from book 1 as well as introducing us to a few new characters along the way.
I love MK Eidem wish she was making more from this series and Grim like they’re hella bunkers all over the world and most are more elaborate and stocked then the Chamberlin’s so they could have saved so many other people lol I mean they had days to grab last min things and get hunkered down. Other than that I loved this book 📖 loved Victoria and Lucas loved the length of the book I hate short stories so this was perfect 👌 great writing too
I would say much the same for this book as the first. I do wish the story was edited better but the audio is a great listen. The only except for this book is that Lucas wasn't at all how I thought he would be at the beginning of the book. I had a hard time with his character. He seems to flip back and forth on his personality.
Wow! There was A LOT that went on in this story. It wasn't just a rescue mission or a how they came together or fighting villains or dealing with adversary. It was of it rolled into one. There was so much stuff that continued to happen with some of it being a tad boring or had me scratching my head as to why it was there (and so violent sometimes too), that I rated this 4 stars.
I love M.K. Eidem. Love all the stories I have read. Shouldn’t have been surprised that is would love this one too. Love how the story was told, where the characters come to live. Didn’t think I would like the another series like the Tornians and Kaliszian series. I was wrong. M.K. Eidem is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.
The Challenge series is more of a romantic action series than straight SF romance. Best read in order. But covers all the bases. Misunderstandings, danger, tragedy, twists, unexpected developments. Oh, and romance. This series holds up over time. I have reread these books multiple times and still get caught up in the story
Finally! If you haven't read Cassandra's Challenge, you likely won't understand a lot of the content in this one. It's not really an absolute requirement, but you will miss a lot if you don't read Cassandra's story first. If you have read it, you will truly love how Victoria's story is handled.
...another fabulous story. It's not as amazing as the first, because the universe had already been explained. That said, I'm impressed that the author was able to serve hip one almost as good. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
Nine years later, we find Victoria grown and ready to claim her soulmate. Lucas needs someone to smack him across the side of the head for how he thinks at the beginning of the book but soon realizes what he could miss out on by his stupidity. Love the plot twist and the fact that we find more survivors and can't wait for the continuation of this series.