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Planet of Last Resort #1
Arrival
Melisande “Melly” Jericho is a newly licensed medical doctor, returning to her home planet to practice family medicine. She hasn’t been home in years and is excited to see her friends and family again. But when her shuttle lands, the spaceport seems deserted and she can’t get her handheld to connect to the network to call for help. Stranded on the landing pad far from the terminal, she joins forces with the only other passengers to arrive, never dreaming they’ll all soon be plunged into a life-or-death situation.
Jeff Pearson, retired Sectors Special Forces captain and his friends have come to colony planet Randal Four to take up ranching. He’s attracted to the curvy doctor as soon as he sees her on board the shuttle to the planet and hopes he can at least get her com details and maybe set up a dinner date before he and his team leave the city to reach their waiting ranchland. His tentative plans come to a crashing halt as a strange horde of moaning, growling people emerges from the terminal, headed in their direction with clearly murderous intent.
Jeff, Melly and the others make a desperate run to escape from the mob and begin an adventure the likes of which none of them could ever have predicted. As they struggle against overwhelming odds to survive, evade the infected, escape the city and reach her family home, the attraction and trust between the two grows ever hotter. But so does the danger and the mystery of what happened to the people of Randal Four.
Planet of Last Resort is book one in a new scifi romance series set in the Sectors. This book will end in a Happy For Now situation for the two main characters; however the series arc will continue and the challenges and dangers will not be resolved in this book. Melly and Jeff will find some of the answers they’re seeking with more mysteries to solve.
Jeff Pearson, retired Sectors Special Forces captain and his friends have come to colony planet Randal Four to take up ranching. He’s attracted to the curvy doctor as soon as he sees her on board the shuttle to the planet and hopes he can at least get her com details and maybe set up a dinner date before he and his team leave the city to reach their waiting ranchland. His tentative plans come to a crashing halt as a strange horde of moaning, growling people emerges from the terminal, headed in their direction with clearly murderous intent.
Jeff, Melly and the others make a desperate run to escape from the mob and begin an adventure the likes of which none of them could ever have predicted. As they struggle against overwhelming odds to survive, evade the infected, escape the city and reach her family home, the attraction and trust between the two grows ever hotter. But so does the danger and the mystery of what happened to the people of Randal Four.
Planet of Last Resort is book one in a new scifi romance series set in the Sectors. This book will end in a Happy For Now situation for the two main characters; however the series arc will continue and the challenges and dangers will not be resolved in this book. Melly and Jeff will find some of the answers they’re seeking with more mysteries to solve.
- GenresScience Fiction Romance
174 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 27, 2025
10 people are currently reading
8 people want to read
About the author
Veronica Scott
91 books242 followersUSA Today Best Selling Science Fiction & Paranormal Romance author.
Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything. When she ran out of books to read, she started writing her own stories.
MISC FACTS ABOUT VERONICA
Seven time winner ~ SFR Galaxy Award
Proud recipient ~ NASA Exceptional Service Medal but must hasten to add the honor was not for her romantic fiction!
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt – I’ll improve your process (mwahahahaa)!
Elvis Presley’s best friend once serenaded Veronica on a local TV telethon…now that could be a novel…
Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything. When she ran out of books to read, she started writing her own stories.
MISC FACTS ABOUT VERONICA
Seven time winner ~ SFR Galaxy Award
Proud recipient ~ NASA Exceptional Service Medal but must hasten to add the honor was not for her romantic fiction!
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt – I’ll improve your process (mwahahahaa)!
Elvis Presley’s best friend once serenaded Veronica on a local TV telethon…now that could be a novel…
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 3, 2025
She’s come home after earning her medical doctor degree and four retired Special Forces vets have retired and taken up their land grant benefit. Too bad they get dropped off into post-apocalyptic chaos. Sci-fi and zombies, anyone? It’s Veronica Scott’s The Sectors world so of course I had to take the plunge.
Arrival is the first in a sub-series set within The Sectors far-future world. Readers don’t have to have read the previous The Sectors books to appreciate this one, but I suspect anyone starting here will want to go back for the rest.
Arrival begins when Melly, a recent medical school grad has just been dropped off by auto-shuttle along with a handful of other passengers coming to her homeworld in a remote sector of space. But, something is off. They stand on the tarmac waiting for a people and cargo hauler to bring them into the spaceport facility and none comes not to mention nothing and nobody are moving about what should be a bustling area. The half-dozen other passengers are just as mystified. She spots in the distance what appears to be a collapsed person on the ground and goes to investigate only to find a body that seems to have been ravaged.
Then their group gets chased by a hoard of… well zombies?
This can’t be real. She and the ones who sprint fast enough barely get inside a building and barricade out the hoard. Their ship that dropped them off is long gone, planetary coms are dead, desiccated and diseased-looking mindless zombies want to eat them. They all had contact with this world just before they got on their ship to get here. What happened? Is her family okay?
Thus begins their gritty adventure efforts to get to safety on a world where much of the tech isn’t working and figure out what happened here. Jeff Pearson and his three fellow retired military vet friends who came to ranch aren’t just good, but very good. Melly is grateful more than ever that the guys were there with her. But, something’s not adding up with their story. She wants answers to more than the mystery of the world’s collapse into chaos since she’s falling for Jeff.
Arrival was thrilling in the style of a traditional zombie post-apocalyptic adventure romance, but it’s paired with a futuristic backdrop and some intrigue tossed in for good measure. Melly doesn’t suddenly turn into an action heroine, but she’s tough in her own way when she pushes through her fear and hangs in there with the Special Forces vet team to go into mission-mode determined to get to their ranch where they have supplies. Along the way they hope to find answers and help look for Melly’s family.
Melly and Jeff are attracted from the outset and between moments of running for their lives and getting to safe places, they start up a romance. By nature, it wasn’t as strongly developed as the rest of the plot as they snatch moments to share about themselves. Melly shares her hopes and plans and Jeff does as well, but she knows he’s holding back part of the truth. Still, I liked them both and liked them together as romance partners and working along with Jeff’s friends to do what they had to do to survive.
Arrival ends in a good spot with some of the answers given. This is obviously the intro book in a series that will follow with the same characters hopefully and provide more answers and a solution to the zombie illness that spread through the population. It is moderately squeamish stuff with zombie keeping it crazy intense for the whole book. I can definitely recommend it to those who like their sci-fi romance with some bite (ha, couldn’t resist).
My full review will post at Books of My Heart on 5.4.25
Arrival is the first in a sub-series set within The Sectors far-future world. Readers don’t have to have read the previous The Sectors books to appreciate this one, but I suspect anyone starting here will want to go back for the rest.
Arrival begins when Melly, a recent medical school grad has just been dropped off by auto-shuttle along with a handful of other passengers coming to her homeworld in a remote sector of space. But, something is off. They stand on the tarmac waiting for a people and cargo hauler to bring them into the spaceport facility and none comes not to mention nothing and nobody are moving about what should be a bustling area. The half-dozen other passengers are just as mystified. She spots in the distance what appears to be a collapsed person on the ground and goes to investigate only to find a body that seems to have been ravaged.
Then their group gets chased by a hoard of… well zombies?
This can’t be real. She and the ones who sprint fast enough barely get inside a building and barricade out the hoard. Their ship that dropped them off is long gone, planetary coms are dead, desiccated and diseased-looking mindless zombies want to eat them. They all had contact with this world just before they got on their ship to get here. What happened? Is her family okay?
Thus begins their gritty adventure efforts to get to safety on a world where much of the tech isn’t working and figure out what happened here. Jeff Pearson and his three fellow retired military vet friends who came to ranch aren’t just good, but very good. Melly is grateful more than ever that the guys were there with her. But, something’s not adding up with their story. She wants answers to more than the mystery of the world’s collapse into chaos since she’s falling for Jeff.
Arrival was thrilling in the style of a traditional zombie post-apocalyptic adventure romance, but it’s paired with a futuristic backdrop and some intrigue tossed in for good measure. Melly doesn’t suddenly turn into an action heroine, but she’s tough in her own way when she pushes through her fear and hangs in there with the Special Forces vet team to go into mission-mode determined to get to their ranch where they have supplies. Along the way they hope to find answers and help look for Melly’s family.
Melly and Jeff are attracted from the outset and between moments of running for their lives and getting to safe places, they start up a romance. By nature, it wasn’t as strongly developed as the rest of the plot as they snatch moments to share about themselves. Melly shares her hopes and plans and Jeff does as well, but she knows he’s holding back part of the truth. Still, I liked them both and liked them together as romance partners and working along with Jeff’s friends to do what they had to do to survive.
Arrival ends in a good spot with some of the answers given. This is obviously the intro book in a series that will follow with the same characters hopefully and provide more answers and a solution to the zombie illness that spread through the population. It is moderately squeamish stuff with zombie keeping it crazy intense for the whole book. I can definitely recommend it to those who like their sci-fi romance with some bite (ha, couldn’t resist).
My full review will post at Books of My Heart on 5.4.25
May 7, 2025
When I first learned Veronica Scott was writing about zombies, I knew I had to read this book. And I found it interesting how it's a new series while also being set in her Sectors Universe. Arrival is a suspenseful story about a newly licensed doctor returning to her home planet to practice medicine there. She arrives at the same time as a "retired" military team, but nothing on the planet is anything like they expected. The planet has been decimated by a virus, killing some and turning others into mindless versions of their former selves, craving human flesh. Being the first book in the series, it introduces Melly, Jeff, Cody, Zach, Samms, and Trent. Plus some others they find on their journey. While there is a bigger mission for the series, Arrival takes us from the moment everyone reaches Randal Four through the journey to Melly's childhood home. Of course, the journey isn't easy with hoards of zombies and raiders along the way, but it does also give us some more intimate moments between Melly and Jeff as they fall in love.
February 4, 2025
Newly minted physician Melly Jericho returns to her home world to practice medicine. But when she lands, there’s nobody to meet her. Nobody period. Other than the Sectors soldiers who’ve landed with her, there’s nobody around—except for the “Infected.” Stricken by a virus, everyone is either dead or has been turned into a zombie.
Melly, Special Forces Captain Jeff Pearson and his fellow soldiers, fight their way to her childhood home, where she’s sure her prepper father, mother and younger brother will be hiding out safe and sound.
I never expected author Veronica Scott to write a zombie book! I don’t read a lot of zombie books, but this sci-fi romance is fantastic. Starting off with a bang, it gripped me right from the start and kept me turning pages until the HFN end. I can’t wait for the next book!!
ARRIVAL is well-written with sympathetic characters you can’t help but root for, excellent pacing, and great world-building. This is a top-notch SFR.
Melly, Special Forces Captain Jeff Pearson and his fellow soldiers, fight their way to her childhood home, where she’s sure her prepper father, mother and younger brother will be hiding out safe and sound.
I never expected author Veronica Scott to write a zombie book! I don’t read a lot of zombie books, but this sci-fi romance is fantastic. Starting off with a bang, it gripped me right from the start and kept me turning pages until the HFN end. I can’t wait for the next book!!
ARRIVAL is well-written with sympathetic characters you can’t help but root for, excellent pacing, and great world-building. This is a top-notch SFR.
March 18, 2025
What a page-turner! The action starts almost immediately and keeps coming in this sci-fi version of The Walking Dead, except with much less gore thanks to high-tech anti-grave boots that allow our heroine, hero, and their friends to leap from roof-top to roof-top. However, even advanced tech can't solve all problems. There are plenty of near misses and heart-stopping moments. And some heart-warming moments as the heightened emotions of fleeing for their lives accelerate the relationship between Melly and Jeff.
This is a complete story as part of a series, but there is more to come, and I can't wait!
This is a complete story as part of a series, but there is more to come, and I can't wait!
December 14, 2025
Read books 1 & 2 in 2 days
Quick read.
Zombie tale with the normal sadness, loss, human stupidity, and courage.
I am a huge fan of Veronica Scott.
I enjoy the fact that many of her books play out in shared universe timelines.
This series is not a typical syfi romance or a typical Zombie adventure.
I will be watching for more books in this series.
Highly recommend
Sectors New Allies Badari series that is set in these universes.
Quick read.
Zombie tale with the normal sadness, loss, human stupidity, and courage.
I am a huge fan of Veronica Scott.
I enjoy the fact that many of her books play out in shared universe timelines.
This series is not a typical syfi romance or a typical Zombie adventure.
I will be watching for more books in this series.
Highly recommend
Sectors New Allies Badari series that is set in these universes.
February 18, 2025
Planet of last resort
Very interesting book. Of course I'm a walking dead fan,so this is perfect for me. Really hope book 2 is coming soon. Kept me engaged to keep reading late into the night.
Very interesting book. Of course I'm a walking dead fan,so this is perfect for me. Really hope book 2 is coming soon. Kept me engaged to keep reading late into the night.
April 7, 2025
SURPRISE
Arrival chronicles the dark side of life on a remote planet.
Romance and love are totally unexpected, but bring the sunshine to the darkness.
Very highly recommend!
Arrival chronicles the dark side of life on a remote planet.
Romance and love are totally unexpected, but bring the sunshine to the darkness.
Very highly recommend!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews