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Zevara: A Cyberpunk Romance for Men
Kyle Wrend wants nothing more than the rumble of his gasbike beneath him, the desolate wilderness around him, and to be left alone.
When he's summoned back to the megacity of Sirrej for a joint operation between two powerful corporations, he reluctantly agrees. The mission seems straightforward on deliver a capsule of flesh-eating acid to a dark zone and eradicate the curse of a dead god that haunts the area. Unfortunately for Kyle, he's not working alone. Each member of the team brings their own baggage—and complications—to the table.
Zevara knows only one killing. After a botched assassination attempt, she seizes the chance to join the region’s largest security corporation, even if it means swallowing her pride. She doesn’t expect much from the mission—until she meets Kyle Wrend, a human wildrunner who flips her world upside down with a single glance.
Zevara is a gripping cyberpunk adventure where brutality and romance collide. In a credcard-driven netscape where loyalty is scarce and titanic bridges stretch across wastelands, one question
What happens when an unstoppable killing machine falls in love with a simple man?
When he's summoned back to the megacity of Sirrej for a joint operation between two powerful corporations, he reluctantly agrees. The mission seems straightforward on deliver a capsule of flesh-eating acid to a dark zone and eradicate the curse of a dead god that haunts the area. Unfortunately for Kyle, he's not working alone. Each member of the team brings their own baggage—and complications—to the table.
Zevara knows only one killing. After a botched assassination attempt, she seizes the chance to join the region’s largest security corporation, even if it means swallowing her pride. She doesn’t expect much from the mission—until she meets Kyle Wrend, a human wildrunner who flips her world upside down with a single glance.
Zevara is a gripping cyberpunk adventure where brutality and romance collide. In a credcard-driven netscape where loyalty is scarce and titanic bridges stretch across wastelands, one question
What happens when an unstoppable killing machine falls in love with a simple man?
- GenresRomantasy
387 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 14, 2025
166 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 22, 2025
Great first book
Can't wait to read more. There's definitely inspiration from Cebelius - Would you love a monster girl series, but this also stands completely on it's own. If you like that series, you will like this!
Can't wait to read more. There's definitely inspiration from Cebelius - Would you love a monster girl series, but this also stands completely on it's own. If you like that series, you will like this!
March 27, 2025
Shows Promise
The short version. It wasn’t bad. In fact, it was good enough that I’ll give the second book in the series a try.
Now, for the long version. SPOILERS AHEAD.
First off, the book is over-written. The author might not stray all the way to purple, but there is a definite lilac tinge to their writing—at times. That’s the thing that kept me going. I struggled through the first five chapters but after that the author seems to have lost the thesaurus and started writing a story rather than trying to impress.
But the biggest problem is that the story just doesn’t make sense. Not only did I have to go back and read why the team was on their mission—and it still didn’t feel like something necessary. And when the twist came—such that it was—I didn’t care. The MMC basically has the same reaction, wondering why it happened at all. The MacGuffin didn’t even come into play at the end. And for no reason. Characters appear and do things and then disappear and we never know why, nor does it ultimately make a difference.
The most annoying thing that didn’t make sense was the romance. I can accept that Zevara was driven by the “mate” instinct and became a slave to her instincts, but why Kyle responds is a mystery. There is some overly worked prose (in the fall backs to over writing) that makes it seem like he has a major epiphany about his life, but I just couldn’t figure out why it happened.
Oh, and Zevara was totally right in her instinct to kill Shrike. I had to stop reading every time the book changed to that character’s POV. Again, he served no purpose.
And now why I’m going to keep reading the series: it shows potential. It’s clear that the author has put a lot of thought into what is happening in the world and how it got there. And when they aren’t trying too hard the writing isn’t bad. I feel like there is plenty of room for growth and I want to see if the author comes into their own.
The short version. It wasn’t bad. In fact, it was good enough that I’ll give the second book in the series a try.
Now, for the long version. SPOILERS AHEAD.
First off, the book is over-written. The author might not stray all the way to purple, but there is a definite lilac tinge to their writing—at times. That’s the thing that kept me going. I struggled through the first five chapters but after that the author seems to have lost the thesaurus and started writing a story rather than trying to impress.
But the biggest problem is that the story just doesn’t make sense. Not only did I have to go back and read why the team was on their mission—and it still didn’t feel like something necessary. And when the twist came—such that it was—I didn’t care. The MMC basically has the same reaction, wondering why it happened at all. The MacGuffin didn’t even come into play at the end. And for no reason. Characters appear and do things and then disappear and we never know why, nor does it ultimately make a difference.
The most annoying thing that didn’t make sense was the romance. I can accept that Zevara was driven by the “mate” instinct and became a slave to her instincts, but why Kyle responds is a mystery. There is some overly worked prose (in the fall backs to over writing) that makes it seem like he has a major epiphany about his life, but I just couldn’t figure out why it happened.
Oh, and Zevara was totally right in her instinct to kill Shrike. I had to stop reading every time the book changed to that character’s POV. Again, he served no purpose.
And now why I’m going to keep reading the series: it shows potential. It’s clear that the author has put a lot of thought into what is happening in the world and how it got there. And when they aren’t trying too hard the writing isn’t bad. I feel like there is plenty of room for growth and I want to see if the author comes into their own.
February 15, 2025
This book has a single fiery ember of a compelling romance, buried under the burden of an otherwise sub-par story.
The story is at it's best when it focuses on the FMC, Zevara. Her thought processes are interesting to follow, her doubts and fears are compelling enough, and her devotion and rage are intensely satisfying to behold. When the story focuses on her; I, a cis-het man, feel like I maybe understand how women find primal 'shifter' romances so compelling; it just took the dynamic flipping, and a shift in word-choice/writing style, to get me there.
But, then we have, well, everything else.
The story is littered with proofreading-level errors: misspellings, using the wrong word / catacresis, dropped words, at least one instance of a "can't lead a gift horse to it's mouth" garbling of a common phrase. There are some chapters where this issue gets almost totally resolved, and others where it becomes every-other-paragraph.
When the story is not focused on the main couple (and sometimes, even then), it leans a little too heavily on common tropes: characters do "the Bat-man Vanish", a character gets randomly forced to participate in (and 'win') a gladitorial pit-fight, "I'm in" type hacker-ing, etc. Honestly, the starting four chapters, where the book introduces the two characters bound to be to be the main couple, are so forced and awkward I nearly didn't read past that point.
I'd like to make a particular call out of how sloppily the MMC was handled overall. He has a 'dealing with the death of a loved one' arc that gets resolved so sloppily I had to stop reading to cool my head. And, quite frankly, the addition of the 'Dies and gets implanted with cyberware' part of the story is not only incredibly poorly done, but it was entirely superfluous to the story as a whole: that, Tim, the 'surviving the fall' part, the gladiator-pit-fight, and all other connecting elements of the story could easily have been cut from the story and it would only have made the story better for it.
The writing, in my opinion, also has the problem of over-simile/metaphor/analogy-ing. It's one things to have a phrase like "The sunset was a glowing beacon of safety amid the rubble"; that's fine and dandy. It's another thing entirely when nearly every single person, place, and thing is descibed with the same amount of metaphor. A person can just have red hair: it doesn't have to be "The haunting shade of dried blood", etc. I will note that this issues was at it's most prevalent in two places: the beginning, where I assume the author was still working on their writing skills; and the chapters from the PoV of an insane man, which is perhaps excusable as a characterization method.
I'll give mild credit for the strange and fantastical wordbuilding of the setting: a very strange mix of fantasy and sci-fi that feels distinctly under-used in the genre at-large.
That's all I really have to say, though. A lot of issues, leaving the majority of the book bordering on skip-worthy. But the splash of intense, feral romance was very well done, and will stick with me in the future.
The story is at it's best when it focuses on the FMC, Zevara. Her thought processes are interesting to follow, her doubts and fears are compelling enough, and her devotion and rage are intensely satisfying to behold. When the story focuses on her; I, a cis-het man, feel like I maybe understand how women find primal 'shifter' romances so compelling; it just took the dynamic flipping, and a shift in word-choice/writing style, to get me there.
But, then we have, well, everything else.
The story is littered with proofreading-level errors: misspellings, using the wrong word / catacresis, dropped words, at least one instance of a "can't lead a gift horse to it's mouth" garbling of a common phrase. There are some chapters where this issue gets almost totally resolved, and others where it becomes every-other-paragraph.
When the story is not focused on the main couple (and sometimes, even then), it leans a little too heavily on common tropes: characters do "the Bat-man Vanish", a character gets randomly forced to participate in (and 'win') a gladitorial pit-fight, "I'm in" type hacker-ing, etc. Honestly, the starting four chapters, where the book introduces the two characters bound to be to be the main couple, are so forced and awkward I nearly didn't read past that point.
I'd like to make a particular call out of how sloppily the MMC was handled overall. He has a 'dealing with the death of a loved one' arc that gets resolved so sloppily I had to stop reading to cool my head. And, quite frankly, the addition of the 'Dies and gets implanted with cyberware' part of the story is not only incredibly poorly done, but it was entirely superfluous to the story as a whole: that, Tim, the 'surviving the fall' part, the gladiator-pit-fight, and all other connecting elements of the story could easily have been cut from the story and it would only have made the story better for it.
The writing, in my opinion, also has the problem of over-simile/metaphor/analogy-ing. It's one things to have a phrase like "The sunset was a glowing beacon of safety amid the rubble"; that's fine and dandy. It's another thing entirely when nearly every single person, place, and thing is descibed with the same amount of metaphor. A person can just have red hair: it doesn't have to be "The haunting shade of dried blood", etc. I will note that this issues was at it's most prevalent in two places: the beginning, where I assume the author was still working on their writing skills; and the chapters from the PoV of an insane man, which is perhaps excusable as a characterization method.
I'll give mild credit for the strange and fantastical wordbuilding of the setting: a very strange mix of fantasy and sci-fi that feels distinctly under-used in the genre at-large.
That's all I really have to say, though. A lot of issues, leaving the majority of the book bordering on skip-worthy. But the splash of intense, feral romance was very well done, and will stick with me in the future.
February 17, 2025
Weird book - clunky and disjointed, with many small errors in vocabulary and much infelicitous word usage. It also tries to do way too much at once - it's a cyberpunk world, but it also has imps, gods, monsters and magic, and our hero is some sort of techno-undead. The cumulative effect is a sort of white noise hodge-podge of concepts none of which quite gels.
I also find it hard to get around the many small inaccuracies that jolt you out of immersion. Minor example: our heroine is shown walking through doors, riding in a limousine, sitting in chairs - all normal human-scale things - but is also described as "two tonnes of scale and muscle" at some point. My dude, do you know how much two tonnes is? That's the weight class of rhinos and hippos, creatures of a scale completely incommensurate with any normal human environment. Try 200kg, tops.
The sad thing is that there's enough here to have been quite good. Tone the hero down some to be a more regular, less inhuman person (having both hero and heroine super jacked death machines doesn't really work given the larger structure here). Cut back on the number of concepts. Get a proof reader to help with the vocab, pacing and phrasing. After that it would be a reasonably strong entry in its micro-niche with some cool characters and ideas.
I also find it hard to get around the many small inaccuracies that jolt you out of immersion. Minor example: our heroine is shown walking through doors, riding in a limousine, sitting in chairs - all normal human-scale things - but is also described as "two tonnes of scale and muscle" at some point. My dude, do you know how much two tonnes is? That's the weight class of rhinos and hippos, creatures of a scale completely incommensurate with any normal human environment. Try 200kg, tops.
The sad thing is that there's enough here to have been quite good. Tone the hero down some to be a more regular, less inhuman person (having both hero and heroine super jacked death machines doesn't really work given the larger structure here). Cut back on the number of concepts. Get a proof reader to help with the vocab, pacing and phrasing. After that it would be a reasonably strong entry in its micro-niche with some cool characters and ideas.
March 22, 2025
4.5 stars. Similar to Cebelius' WYDAMG books in some ways (author admits the influence) but its' own thing. Cross cyberpunk with urban fantasy and you get this book. It was a good read, although it loses a half star for the frequent PoV shifts disrupting the story flow. The world has some potential, so we'll see what a book 2 will have to offer.
February 9, 2025
This turned out really nice. It had it's hiccups but was a sweet love story about a monster girl and a boy with some nice thoughtful writing thrown in the mix. I think the author spends a lot of time thinking about stuff. I'd recommend it. Got some real winner dad jokes in it too.
February 3, 2025
So so good
This was an amazing book. The characters are complex and feel real the writing is tight and dialog well done. I can not say enough how much I liked this.
This was an amazing book. The characters are complex and feel real the writing is tight and dialog well done. I can not say enough how much I liked this.
February 5, 2025
Superb
Although I wish our leads had much more interactions, the book ended as well as I could have hoped. I absolutely love it. I simply can't wait for more!
Although I wish our leads had much more interactions, the book ended as well as I could have hoped. I absolutely love it. I simply can't wait for more!
March 3, 2025
Oh, everyone’s miserable and spends all their time having flashbacks to traumatic events, or ruminating on how hopeless things are now. Not for me.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews