Tangled Web

Elexis is a Government Internet Security specialist, a very high honor for a human in the new alien government of Earth. She was happy in her job, and felt her life was good. Elexis was very young when she lost her family during the first alien attack, but she clearly remembers being rescued by this second race of aliens who saved Earth by defeating the first aliens. These new aliens offered to help the few humans left, taking care of the orphaned children, cleaning up the environment, eliminating crime and violence, and reorganizing the government.

In order to keep the peace, the aliens have forbidden humans to have physical sex – all human reproduction is to be done in the lab -- because sex leads to disease and incites violence and other unhealthy emotions. Instead, humans are allowed to have cybersex whenever they want. They may go online, specify the physical attributes they desire in a partner, and be connected at random to another person with whom to have virtual sex. They never know to whom they are connected, and they never see that person again. Elexis was happy with this arrangement and even agreed with it, because she knew no other life. Until one evening, she was connected to Cade in the cybersex program ... and her life would never be the same.

This short novel was extremely well plotted, and the writing was equally good. This is a great science fiction story, smoothly combined with an erotic romance. I was pleased to see that the two authors’ styles are merged so effortlessly and completely that the result is one seamless work. It takes a lot of writing skill to accomplish that. I especially enjoyed the fact that background details we need to understand the story are woven naturally throughout, rather than being lumped into one long piece of exposition at the beginning. All of these stylistic points lead to a very interesting, very effortless read that slips the reader into the story and entices her through to the end without allowing her to pause.

The love scenes between a man and a woman are very explicit and very hot, but should not be shocking to any except the most conservative readers. It is fascinating to watch the character of Elexis grow and develop, learning the joys of physical sex, and questioning what it means to be human in this Earth controlled by the aliens. Cade’s character was fully developed as a very charismatic “bad boy.” I thought this was an excellent book, and recommend it to readers of science fiction and erotic romance.

Reviewed by: Jean