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Defiant Trilogy #1
Defiant
Welcome to the Ektos universe
A Sarcastic Criminal…
Locked away in a maximum security prison on an artificial planet, the last thing Faelan expected was a prince to come begging for her help. She accepts his deal in exchange for her freedom, but even more unexpected are the feelings she comes to have for Prince Virion. In order to help him, she’ll have to face her past and return to the world of betrayal that landed her behind bars, including the man that got her tortured and arrested.
A Troubled Prince…
Virion will do anything to bring his little sister home, including resorting to criminal means. Releasing Faelan is only the start, disobeying his king—and father—not even the half of it. He soon discovers, however, that Faelan isn’t as bad as her reputation makes her out to be. True to her word, she helps him, but more than that she gives him hope.
A Kidnapped Princess…
As the trail takes them deeper into space where no one but criminals like Faelan have gone and survived, Virion will desperately need Faelan’s skill and guidance. Can they find his sister in time or is it already too late?
DEFIANT is a Science Fiction/Fantasy Romance and is the first novel in the Defiant Trilogy.
A Sarcastic Criminal…
Locked away in a maximum security prison on an artificial planet, the last thing Faelan expected was a prince to come begging for her help. She accepts his deal in exchange for her freedom, but even more unexpected are the feelings she comes to have for Prince Virion. In order to help him, she’ll have to face her past and return to the world of betrayal that landed her behind bars, including the man that got her tortured and arrested.
A Troubled Prince…
Virion will do anything to bring his little sister home, including resorting to criminal means. Releasing Faelan is only the start, disobeying his king—and father—not even the half of it. He soon discovers, however, that Faelan isn’t as bad as her reputation makes her out to be. True to her word, she helps him, but more than that she gives him hope.
A Kidnapped Princess…
As the trail takes them deeper into space where no one but criminals like Faelan have gone and survived, Virion will desperately need Faelan’s skill and guidance. Can they find his sister in time or is it already too late?
DEFIANT is a Science Fiction/Fantasy Romance and is the first novel in the Defiant Trilogy.
266 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2016
18 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
C.M. Herndon
21 books21 followersHey guys! Just a bit about myself and the kind of stories I like. I'm a huge fan of Sherrilyn Kenyon's League Novels. I like my romance novels with a twist of sci-fi, fantasy, or suspense. The best stories are the ones that make you feel every range of emotion and that's what I try to do with my own novels. I especially love a book that can make me laugh and knows how to use sarcasm. I'm a surprisingly picky reader, so when a story really sweeps me off my feet I tell the world how fantastic it is.
Now a bit about me in general. I love writing (obviously) and becoming an author has certainly been one of the best things I've ever done. I believe every writer grows and becomes better with every book they write and I certainly believe it for myself. I love reading, especially books that make me laugh. Cosplaying is a major hobby of mine, and I attend renaissance festivals as often as possible. Archery is another fun habit of mine, as well as Netflix. I have four dogs (Bruiser, River, Poot-I know he has a funny name-and Karma) and two cats (Savvy and Piper) and I live in the bright Sunshine State.
Now a bit about me in general. I love writing (obviously) and becoming an author has certainly been one of the best things I've ever done. I believe every writer grows and becomes better with every book they write and I certainly believe it for myself. I love reading, especially books that make me laugh. Cosplaying is a major hobby of mine, and I attend renaissance festivals as often as possible. Archery is another fun habit of mine, as well as Netflix. I have four dogs (Bruiser, River, Poot-I know he has a funny name-and Karma) and two cats (Savvy and Piper) and I live in the bright Sunshine State.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 31, 2016
I know I tend towards verbosity and my innate charm wit sarcasm tends to come across as overwhelmingly scathing and negative in text, so the TL;DR is the last paragraph for those who don't want to wade through everything!
An okay if rather unoriginal set-up marred by amateurish writing. I can thankfully say that it was free of typos, but the author could really have done with a thesaurus to hand so that I didn't have to keep reading sentences like "she knew his accent was Callanan, although there seemed to be a slight lilt to his accent. Perhaps he'd spent several years off planet and lost a bit of his accent." Enough with the accents already, it's clunky, repetitive and redundant.
This redundancy was also evident in how names were dropped in any time the author wanted to reiterate who was doing what in a scene, even if nobody else had been mentioned between one action and the next. I like that willingness to be thorough, but most people will naturally assume that an action is being performed by the person last mentioned unless we're specifically told otherwise. Of course the only time I noticed the author stopped doing this they managed to do it in such a way as to make it seem like a completely different character was involved
I was also deeply, deeply frustrated at how this tries so hard to make out it's sci-fi, but apart from the faster than light spaceships and the the Galiseans with their fangs and funky camouflage skin ability, the planets may as well have been different countries and everyone no matter where they came from seemed to uphold 20th/ 21st century Western ideals of morality and beauty. The princess was born from and raised in to an intensely proud warrior culture that's all about honour, strength, and even more honour, and every man, woman and child looks up to warriors and sees them as the manifestation of all that one should aspire to (tbh Callanans sounded kind of like human Klingons to me). So what does she do when she's kidnapped and wakes up in a cage? She waits for her older brother to come rescue her like a completely useless wet blanket and gets excited when she gets her hands on a razor and can shave her legs. Because in a supposedly sci-fi novel where they can fly to different star systems and build artificial planetoids with gravity and atmosphere, they're still using water based showers and scented shampoo to clean themselves with and razors to curtail "unsightly" body hair. Oh and she also develops Stockholm Syndrome towards her guard because he feeds her hot meals and lets her out of the cage to use the toilet , but at this point mentioning something like that from a romance story kind of feels like I'm stating the obvious and it's started to lose all real meaning to me. Which is kind of horrendous all in itself, but moving on...
The only reasons I actually finished this book, which took me 2 weeks to read instead of my usual 2 days, was 1) I'm behind in my reading challenge this year and 2) I did actually develop a soft spot for the some of the characters. I didn't find them particularly well developed and I thought the relationship between Virion and Faelan developing in the space of a week from "ew, you're a criminal!" and "I trust nobody!" to "we love each other so much we'll be together forever!" was far-fetched, especially because Virion spent the entire time stressed out over finding his kidnapped sister, but there was something about them that I found enjoyable or interesting enough to want to know how they were going to save the day and have a HEA (it was obvious from the synopsis that this was going to have a HEA). So yay for relatable characters!
This review comes across as a lot more negative and scathing than I mean it to sound, but I still stand by what I've said. Honestly I feel that if the author works on the sentence structure and drops the repetitive word usage their writing would instantly feel a lot more fluid, natural and far less tedious to read. Me finding this story slightly unoriginal is mostly because I do a lot of reading primarily of the Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Urban Fantasy genres and over 25 years I'm bound to start noticing patterns and standard tropes. That doesn't necessarily make them bad (things only become tropes because they're so well used and they wouldn't be used if they weren't popular), but they can clue in an experienced reader to where things are going unless the author really works at obfuscating the twists and turns (without outright lying, readers hate that because it seems inconsistent).
TL;DR: This is a 3 star story that's a fairly average and okay read, but lacks detailed world-building or character development. I am awarding it 2 stars because of the amateurish seeming writing displayed in my copy (bought from the Amazon UK kindle store on March 15th 2016). The author has potential though if in the future they can work on the repetitive sentence structure and maybe focus more on showing character emotions and motivations (though resist the urge to monologue, monologues are boring. Conversations are good!)
An okay if rather unoriginal set-up marred by amateurish writing. I can thankfully say that it was free of typos, but the author could really have done with a thesaurus to hand so that I didn't have to keep reading sentences like "she knew his accent was Callanan, although there seemed to be a slight lilt to his accent. Perhaps he'd spent several years off planet and lost a bit of his accent." Enough with the accents already, it's clunky, repetitive and redundant.
This redundancy was also evident in how names were dropped in any time the author wanted to reiterate who was doing what in a scene, even if nobody else had been mentioned between one action and the next. I like that willingness to be thorough, but most people will naturally assume that an action is being performed by the person last mentioned unless we're specifically told otherwise. Of course the only time I noticed the author stopped doing this they managed to do it in such a way as to make it seem like a completely different character was involved
I was also deeply, deeply frustrated at how this tries so hard to make out it's sci-fi, but apart from the faster than light spaceships and the the Galiseans with their fangs and funky camouflage skin ability, the planets may as well have been different countries and everyone no matter where they came from seemed to uphold 20th/ 21st century Western ideals of morality and beauty. The princess was born from and raised in to an intensely proud warrior culture that's all about honour, strength, and even more honour, and every man, woman and child looks up to warriors and sees them as the manifestation of all that one should aspire to (tbh Callanans sounded kind of like human Klingons to me). So what does she do when she's kidnapped and wakes up in a cage? She waits for her older brother to come rescue her like a completely useless wet blanket and gets excited when she gets her hands on a razor and can shave her legs. Because in a supposedly sci-fi novel where they can fly to different star systems and build artificial planetoids with gravity and atmosphere, they're still using water based showers and scented shampoo to clean themselves with and razors to curtail "unsightly" body hair. Oh and she also develops Stockholm Syndrome towards her guard because he feeds her hot meals and lets her out of the cage to use the toilet , but at this point mentioning something like that from a romance story kind of feels like I'm stating the obvious and it's started to lose all real meaning to me. Which is kind of horrendous all in itself, but moving on...
The only reasons I actually finished this book, which took me 2 weeks to read instead of my usual 2 days, was 1) I'm behind in my reading challenge this year and 2) I did actually develop a soft spot for the some of the characters. I didn't find them particularly well developed and I thought the relationship between Virion and Faelan developing in the space of a week from "ew, you're a criminal!" and "I trust nobody!" to "we love each other so much we'll be together forever!" was far-fetched, especially because Virion spent the entire time stressed out over finding his kidnapped sister, but there was something about them that I found enjoyable or interesting enough to want to know how they were going to save the day and have a HEA (it was obvious from the synopsis that this was going to have a HEA). So yay for relatable characters!
This review comes across as a lot more negative and scathing than I mean it to sound, but I still stand by what I've said. Honestly I feel that if the author works on the sentence structure and drops the repetitive word usage their writing would instantly feel a lot more fluid, natural and far less tedious to read. Me finding this story slightly unoriginal is mostly because I do a lot of reading primarily of the Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Urban Fantasy genres and over 25 years I'm bound to start noticing patterns and standard tropes. That doesn't necessarily make them bad (things only become tropes because they're so well used and they wouldn't be used if they weren't popular), but they can clue in an experienced reader to where things are going unless the author really works at obfuscating the twists and turns (without outright lying, readers hate that because it seems inconsistent).
TL;DR: This is a 3 star story that's a fairly average and okay read, but lacks detailed world-building or character development. I am awarding it 2 stars because of the amateurish seeming writing displayed in my copy (bought from the Amazon UK kindle store on March 15th 2016). The author has potential though if in the future they can work on the repetitive sentence structure and maybe focus more on showing character emotions and motivations (though resist the urge to monologue, monologues are boring. Conversations are good!)
November 2, 2024
Yeah let’s save the do gooder princess..who was so happy she got a razor to shave her legs…yeah not high on the list of things when you are kidnapped…the whole royal family in the story are all TSTL. The Bone breaker is a bad guy but the useless princess just loves him it’s ok…that he mistreats the FMC of the story…the omg our brother is plotting to become king….oh he would not do that…yeah the whole lot of you are TSTL, FMC Faelyn felt sorry for her to be in this story with those dumbasses
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March 20, 2016
This book was so much fun to read that I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish. Every character seemed to have been fleshed out and I really can't wait to read more. Considering that this is the first sci fi romance book by the author, it was pretty impressive. And I'm not easily impressed. I can only imagine that the next two books will be more adventurous and revealing.
It was a nice blend of sci fi and romance, my favorite kind.
It was a nice blend of sci fi and romance, my favorite kind.
March 13, 2018
Am tapping out on this one at the 10% mark - finding myself critiquing and wincing at the author's word choices more than focusing on the story itself. From the second sentence I knew I was in trouble on this one. But I hoped that things could be turned around.
First off, this author needs a thesaurus. Using words like 'option' three times in two consecutive sentences is not just lazy but distracting and repetitive. Same goes for 'ass' and a host of other words this author suddenly clung to with tenacity. Mix it up. Read it back out loud.
When you depict a character as being a smart mouth and then have them ramble on constantly- then that character better be as witty and as funny as all get out - Fae failed on all counts here and just came across a grumpy child.
There were word choices that jarred me constantly here - she was 'clever-minded'. Not smart. Not intelligent. But clever minded? WTH is that?
And I found it beyond distracting when a character spoke - and the author then noted "He told her" or "He said" This is inherently obvious, I don't need anyone to point it out. Again, read your story out loud, you will pick up these problems.
The writing, poor word choice, limited word choice, sentence structure and depiction of characters limited this story from even realising a glimmer of potential.
First off, this author needs a thesaurus. Using words like 'option' three times in two consecutive sentences is not just lazy but distracting and repetitive. Same goes for 'ass' and a host of other words this author suddenly clung to with tenacity. Mix it up. Read it back out loud.
When you depict a character as being a smart mouth and then have them ramble on constantly- then that character better be as witty and as funny as all get out - Fae failed on all counts here and just came across a grumpy child.
There were word choices that jarred me constantly here - she was 'clever-minded'. Not smart. Not intelligent. But clever minded? WTH is that?
And I found it beyond distracting when a character spoke - and the author then noted "He told her" or "He said" This is inherently obvious, I don't need anyone to point it out. Again, read your story out loud, you will pick up these problems.
The writing, poor word choice, limited word choice, sentence structure and depiction of characters limited this story from even realising a glimmer of potential.
April 10, 2020
Well done and interesting....
I was hesitant to buy this because of the unknown author and very few reviews. But, it was great! The story moved well, Faelyn, the mc was sarcastic and kick ads without being annoying, and the suspense and mystery were enough to keep me interesting it what happened next. Also, the author did a really good jot with the multiple points of view. I usually hate it when the story's told from dual or multiple viewpoints because it's rarely seem less, and it makes the story so confusing. This one though, it was seem less and only added to the story.
There were really only two things that slightly irked me, and they weren't even big things. First, the pacing was fast and suspenseful, but everything happened in about a week! Which for the overall story worked, but the relationships, trust issues, etc were super rushed. Secondly, the "bad guy" wasn't very bad and I didn't loathe him, I was more like "meh, he's a jerk but....". He fell into the misunderstood, has-a-sorry-sob-story-for-why-he-hates-everyone cliche.
Overall, I liked it . A lot, and ill be on the lookout for the next rtf in the series, but it was a bit forgettable and didn't wow me, hence the four stars....Which is really more of a 3.5.
I was hesitant to buy this because of the unknown author and very few reviews. But, it was great! The story moved well, Faelyn, the mc was sarcastic and kick ads without being annoying, and the suspense and mystery were enough to keep me interesting it what happened next. Also, the author did a really good jot with the multiple points of view. I usually hate it when the story's told from dual or multiple viewpoints because it's rarely seem less, and it makes the story so confusing. This one though, it was seem less and only added to the story.
There were really only two things that slightly irked me, and they weren't even big things. First, the pacing was fast and suspenseful, but everything happened in about a week! Which for the overall story worked, but the relationships, trust issues, etc were super rushed. Secondly, the "bad guy" wasn't very bad and I didn't loathe him, I was more like "meh, he's a jerk but....". He fell into the misunderstood, has-a-sorry-sob-story-for-why-he-hates-everyone cliche.
Overall, I liked it . A lot, and ill be on the lookout for the next rtf in the series, but it was a bit forgettable and didn't wow me, hence the four stars....Which is really more of a 3.5.
April 7, 2016
Not a bad read. In spite of the romance, there was actually a fair bit of action and adventure and not bad set of main characters in the book. While the story does have several planets and interstellar travel, this is definitely not a hard core science fiction novel. It is science fiction in setting only.
While the characters were not badly written, the overall feel of the book is a little on the fluffy side. All the criminals turn out to really be misunderstood people with an unfortunate start in life. The princess easily turns a hard core torturing, murdering criminal into a nice person with her loving personality. It's not that I don't like happy endings, I just had a hard time swallowing the whole "change the world with a smile and a hug" type feel. But if you enjoy romance and the softer type action/adventure, you will likely enjoy this book.
While the characters were not badly written, the overall feel of the book is a little on the fluffy side. All the criminals turn out to really be misunderstood people with an unfortunate start in life. The princess easily turns a hard core torturing, murdering criminal into a nice person with her loving personality. It's not that I don't like happy endings, I just had a hard time swallowing the whole "change the world with a smile and a hug" type feel. But if you enjoy romance and the softer type action/adventure, you will likely enjoy this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 30, 2016
Love a strong heroine!
I can't wait for the next book! There has to be one. The tension was just right and I love a strong character that also has some soft spots. The world that has been built is very interesting and I would love to hear more. This is my first book I read by this author and I will be checking out more.
I can't wait for the next book! There has to be one. The tension was just right and I love a strong character that also has some soft spots. The world that has been built is very interesting and I would love to hear more. This is my first book I read by this author and I will be checking out more.
March 14, 2016
Really enjoyed this one.
Let me just say what a great book! It had the perfect mixture of sarcasm, wit, suspense and romance. I loved it! I laughed frequently and even cried. The author did a wonderful job of pulling me into the book. Obviously, I recommend this book.
Let me just say what a great book! It had the perfect mixture of sarcasm, wit, suspense and romance. I loved it! I laughed frequently and even cried. The author did a wonderful job of pulling me into the book. Obviously, I recommend this book.
March 19, 2016
Excellent book
This story was terrific. I am looking forward to the next book in this series.
I enjoyed CM Herndon's writing and will look at some of her other books.
This story was terrific. I am looking forward to the next book in this series.
I enjoyed CM Herndon's writing and will look at some of her other books.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews