Book Review
of Alien Revealed Sponsored by Bewitching Book Tours
Book
Synopsis:
Alien Revealed
by Lilly Cain
Carina Press
Inarrii agent Alinna Gaerrii was
tasked with observing the Starforce base on Earth. Crash landing her
observation pod onto the base was not part of her mission briefing. Neither was
making m’ittar—mind contact—with Major David Brown, the human who
discovered her amongst the wreckage.
David thinks she’s a psychologist
sent to evaluate his Special Forces team, and Alinna goes along with his
misconception, seizing the opportunity to observe humans up close. But their
daily contact has unexpected side effects, and Alinna soon invades David’s
dreams. Through their intimate mental connection she allows him to express his
forbidden physical desires.
Alinna delights in the sensory
exploration and grows excited by the prospect of a treaty with the humans and a
potential life mate in David. But an attack from an unknown ship sends the base
into chaos, and Alinna may be forced to reveal her lie, erasing all hope of a
successful treaty, and driving David away forever…
Author
Information:
Lilly Cain is a wild woman with a deep throaty laugh,
plunging necklines and a great lover of all things sensual - perfume,
chocolate, silk! She never has to worry about finding a date or keeping a man
in line. She keeps her blond hair long and curly, wears beautiful clothes and
loves loud music. Lilly lives her private life in the pages of her books.
Lilly lives in Atlantic Canada, although she spent
eight years in Bermuda, enjoying the heat and the pink sands. She returned
to her homeland so she could see the changing of the seasons once again. When
not writing she paints, swills coffee and vodka (but not together), and fights
her writing pals for chocolate.
When not living up to her pen name, Lilly is a single
mom who loves reading and writing, dabbling in art and loving and caring for
her two daughters. She loves romance and the freedom erotic fantasy provides
her imagination. She loves the chilling moments in her novels as much as the
steaming hot interludes. Her stories are an escape and a release, and she hopes
that they can give you that power, too.
Media Links:
Publisher (books also available on
Amazon etc, and available as an audiobook at Audible.com) www.carinapress.com
Book
Excerpt:
“I repeat this is
Agent Alinna Gaerrii, Unit Nine. Tel sho ahoi. I am in a crash
situation.” Alinna called out the codes in Inarrii and in Standard English in
case she was picked up by the human military base she was about to crash land
on. They shouldn’t be aware of her presence, but under the circumstances, if
they did hear her, at least they would likely assume they were
getting a garbled report of the now burning airjet on the ground. Thankfully,
the local dialect had been ingrained in her consciousness after six months of
intense monitoring and translation of their communications.
She was going
down. Her small observation pod hurtled toward the ground at an ever-increasing
rate. Caught in the downdraft of an out-of-control human airjet, her tiny spy
craft seemed as doomed as the vehicle that had crashed to the ground in front
of her moments ago. Shuddering sensations raced up Alinna’s arms and along her
scalp. Her L’inar nerve lines forced her skin up into narrow
bands and ridges along her neck and hairline in an instinctual reaction as her
concern turned quickly into fear.
Her pod was not
meant for this kind of action. A tiny craft rigged to avoid human detection, it
was only meant for short-term surveillance. There was barely enough room on
board for her long body to lie flat against the monitoring equipment. Her
mission was simple—park her ship on the moon and use her pod to observe human
behavior—to watch, but not interact. But I am going to interact;
they’re going to have to peel my Inarrii skin right off their shiny new
Starforce facilities. Sweat beaded on her forehead as Alinna fought
again to regain control, wrenching the hand controls up and back until they
pressed against her chest.
Warning lights
flashed. Her altitude was dropping erratically. “No shit,” she said aloud. Six
months of listening to the humans’ fondness for verbal vulgarity was rubbing
off. She’d been observing a heated argument on the ground when the human airjet
took her by surprise, veering suddenly off its scheduled course and into the
airspace above the woods surrounding the new military base. Swerving right into
her path, its engine had disrupted the ultrasonic pulse waves that kept her pod
safely aloft. In seconds, the airjet had crashed to the ground and erupted in
flames while she watched, unable to do anything other than struggle for control
over her own vehicle. The airjet had broken into three jagged pieces; there was
little likelihood anyone survived.
The automated
emergency beacon started to flash as Alinna gave up trying to recover and
instead braced for impact. The tips of treetops snapped hard against the outer
shell of her pod, twisting the small craft into a spin. Alinna held on, her
heart pounding. Her curving L’inar nerve lines were tight and
burning in alarm. The fall took forever, the last of the ultrasonic waves
battering the tiny ship against the tall spikes of Earth vegetation. Then, with
one sudden stomach-wrenching drop, the craft hit the ground.
Alinna lay
stunned inside her pod. For a moment, she ignored the screaming monitors around
her. I’m alive. Then the sharp scent of ozone caught her
attention. The warnings flashing and beeping around her suddenly had meaning
again. She scrambled to unfasten her harness and wiggle her way to the escape
hatch at the front of the craft. She snarled in frustration when the latch
release refused to operate. Time to get out—now. Urgency flooded endorphins
through her body, lending her a full measure of Inarrii strength.
Alinna slammed
the hatch completely open as a shudder rippled through the ship. She could
smell smoke. Security measures dictated she would need to hide the craft while
on alien soil, but she wondered if there would be anything left to hide. She
dragged her body through the narrow hatch, grabbing her emergency pouch on the
way out. This was so much easier in the escape simulations. Disembarking
was simple when she was in the weightless docking bay of her larger
vessel—secreted now in a crater on the darker side of the Earth’s moon.
Alinna scrambled
to her knees on the thick carpet of vegetation outside her ship. She staggered
as she rose to her feet and moved away from the small craft. Taking refuge
under the sagging bows of a huge tree, she stared at her ruined vessel. The
human airjet had destroyed the ultrasonic wave pattern keeping her aloft, but
she could have recovered if she’d been a little higher. But in the business of
surveillance, being close was a necessary risk. It was the landing that had
wrecked it, the landing and being bounced and smashed against the trees. The
branches of the massive vegiforms around her had slowed her enough to save her
life, but the pod was done.
A soft breeze
brought the acrid stench of smoke. The human airjet was burning nearby and
would surely have military attention at any moment. She needed to get rid of
the pod and hide. She tapped the skin at the base of her left ear, initiating
her internal command unit. Without much hope, she requested total silent mode
for the pod. Before her, a shimmer of light flickered over the craft as it
attempted to initiate the power field to make it once again invisible to the
naked eye or casual scan. Nothing happened. She grimaced. Not
surprising, after the beating the vessel took on the way down.
“Kahemnit dal,” she whispered. “Shit.” The human curse sounded more satisfying,
and certainly more graphic. An errant breeze flipped a lock of her shoulder-
length brown hair into her eyes. She blew it away from her face with a huff of
annoyance.I have no choice. I have to destroy the ship. “Tel sho ahoi, sho
amnetii.” Alinna used her internal command unit to access her damaged
craft’s communication system to signal her people, hidden far away on the
secret Jupiter Moon Base. With luck, they would hear her, although she might
never know what they thought of her decision. They could not respond to her;
any incoming communication held a much higher risk of detection.
“I am initiating sho
amnetii gohan yi.” She began the short self-destruct sequence, pursing her
lips and hoping it would work. If the ship was too damaged for its last
service, she would have to find some way to destroy or hide it herself. That
might not be possible, having crash landed on the outskirts of the heavily
guarded human Starforce base. She scanned the woods. She was going to need a
more secure hiding spot, and soon. If she was discovered by the humans, the
mission would be a total loss, spelling disaster for her career and serious
trouble for the eventual first contact between the Inarrii and Humans.
Alinna stepped
away from the shelter of the tree and shivered as the cool breeze brushed
against her legs. She felt wet. Confused, she looked down at her legs and was
shocked at the sight of a long rip in the heavy material of her blue flight
suit. Blood ran freely from a deep gash in her calf. As if the sight of the
injury suddenly made it a reality, pain swept through her body. She staggered.
A soft moan slipped from her lips as she realized how badly she was injured.
Pain blossomed in her head as well, making her wonder if she’d also suffered a
concussion during her abrupt drop to Earth. Before her, waves of heat rose from
her tiny spy pod. At least the self-destruct appeared to be working.
She staggered
away from the craft, trying to get out of range as it used its own components
to create a chemical reaction to reduce it to a tiny puddle of melted plastics.
After perhaps a few dozen steps, she fell to her knees. She flicked on her
internal comp’s smart mode, since the realization she was about to be
unconscious was inescapable. Maybe it could think of a way out of this. At the
very least it would continue to gather information. Out of the corner of her
eye, she spotted the lumbering flight of another human aircraft headed straight
toward the crash site, and her.
* * *
Major David Brown
cursed softly under his breath. What he didn’t need right now was another
delay. Not for any reason. He had two weeks until the newest Starforce mission
team would be assembled, and he planned to be on it as team leader. Instead he
was sitting with his Starforce pilots in the back of a heli-jet on their way to
a crash. He grabbed the handle above his seat as turbulence interrupted his
thought—high winds taking their toll on the impromptu rescue team’s combination
heli-jet. He shook his head. Their orders were to find and investigate a
military airjet that had sent out distress signals and apparently gone down
over the base.
The team assembly
would have to wait. Lives were at stake, and the base was undermanned. Recent
transfers and the opening of a newer, larger base had moved out so much staff
that he and the other pilots currently residing on the base had been forced to
take up security positions for this unforeseen disaster.
David frowned.
The assembly would wait anyway. According to the latest scuttle, the entire
team had to be evaluated by yet another psychologist. He, in particular, was
about to be closely scrutinized, tested yet again for fitness of duty for
long-term space travel and command.
“Base to unit
seven-oh-seven.” The message came across an open channel.
David tapped the
compad on the side of his helmet. “Unit seven-oh-seven here.”
“We have
communication for Major Brown.”
“This is Major
Brown,” David replied steadily despite the sensation of several pairs of eyes
now focused on him.
“Major Brown, we
have received satellite confirmation that airjet four-two-nine is down and
burning on sector Alpha-Charlie-seven-niner.”
“Understood.”
“We have also
been informed the roster was clear except for the two male air force pilots and
one Dr. Janet MacPherson, a civilian assigned to your team.”
David blinked. Damn. Muttering
began in the back of the heli-jet. News traveled faster in the ranks than laser
fire. There was no sense trying to keep rumors silent—pressure to do so only
made the rumors fly faster. “Copy. Unit seven-oh-seven out.”
So the psychtech was on board. He mulled that fact over along with the reality that
few people ever survived an airjet crash. While he regretted the loss of any
life, a thought lurked like a shadow in his mind. If she’s dead,
they’ll postpone the mission…or more likely, they’ll pull an officer in from
another team to replace me and get the job done. Either thought left
him cold.
“ETA two minutes,
Major Brown.”
David could
already feel the deceleration of the heli- jet. Small and maneuverable, the vehicle
covered the huge base in minutes and could land in a space smaller than his
quarters. He held up a closed fist to his team, five of the best pilots in
Starforce. They wouldn’t normally risk the skills these men and women had in a
rescue mission, even in the understaffed status of the base, but the base was
undermanned on purpose. As well as the recent opening of a new larger base
taking some of the staff, operations here were intended to be top secret, and
the fewer people involved, the better. Besides, his pilots were getting antsy
waiting for the mission to be assigned. A little action was a good thing.
“Lee, Yancy, you
two are on left flank. Olens, Huff and Branscombe, you go to the right. Look
for the airjet comp unit.”
“What about
survivors?” First Lieutenant Angie Lee called out.
“There aren’t
likely to be any, but see if you can ID any bodies.”
“Savvy,” she
agreed.
The heli-jet
touched down, its landing a gentle bump. The team filed out while David waited
near the pilot. He slapped a hand to the pilot’s shoulder. “Round us up in ten
minutes.”
“Understood,
Major.”
David stepped out
of the heli-jet and into hell. The light breeze blew smoke directly into his
face. The airjet lay broken into three pieces like a discarded toy before him,
and the tail end was burning. He clamped his lips shut against the noxious
smell of charred plasmetal alloy. There’s no way anyone lived through
this. The grim thought barely passed through his mind when he heard
shouts from his team on the left flank of the crash site. He jogged steadily
toward the group, his eyes quickly focusing on his team and on Lieutenant Lee’s
kneeling position over what had to be a crash victim.
David leapt over
a few tree roots and neatly avoided thick pine branches broken off by the
fallen airjet. The scene struck him as surreal. In a world with little
vegetation left, they were all invaders in this pocket of wilderness. At a
better time, he might have enjoyed the scent of pine, the cool of the shaded
woods. In moments, he too stood over the body of a woman, her features slack
and the left leg of her blue jumper ripped and coated in blood.
He shook his head
and grimaced. “Dr. MacPherson.”
“She’s alive,
Major!” Lieutenant Lee was already hauling out her emergency medkit.
“What?” Adrenalin
flooded his body. He’d been ready to accept the psychtech’s loss, but the
situation had changed. She needed his help, now. “Lieutenant Yancy, get that
autolift from the heli-jet.” He tapped his helmet’s compad. “Unit
seven-oh-seven to base—we have a survivor and need immediate medical
attention.”
David switched
his attention back to the injured woman. Her light brown hair spread around her
on the ground. Lee was working fast, applying a compress to the woman’s leg
until they could get her to the medtechs. The psychtech moaned, tilting her
head to one side and exposing a series of intricate rust-colored tattoos
running from her scalp down the length of her neck. David frowned. They looked
like the tattoos popular a few years ago with underground groups wanting to align
with their cultural backgrounds, usually tree-hugging low techs. What
kind of military psychologist wears cultural tats?
He tapped his
compad. “Branscombe, how’s it look over there?”
“No sign of comp
or vics.”
A soft moan
brought David’s attention back to the injured doctor. Her eyelids fluttered,
revealing unusually bright green eyes. “Gohan yi…” she murmured
before passing out again. Lieutenant Lee looked up at him, a question in her
eyes, but David shrugged. Hard to say what the woman was trying to get out at
this point. But she’d live, and they could question her later.
“Major,” Captain
Sue Branscombe called over the compad and through the air simultaneously. Her
team had worked its way to the other side of the wreck and now stood several
yards away, near another set of giant pine trees. She waved to him, indicating
he should come to their location, and he signaled that he would in a moment.
Lieutenant Tom Yancy arrived with the autolift, walking beside it as it glided
above the air on an ultrasonic wave. Its low vibrating hum played counterpoint
to the staccato sound of the burning airjet. David caught one edge of the lift
and steadied it as Yancy signaled it for descent, then helped him slide the
doctor’s unconscious body onto the flat surface.
“Get her back to
the medlab and stay with her. Have the heli-jet come back for us.” David kept
his eyes on the woman’s face. She remained unconscious, her smooth skin pale
and unlined. Without the bright green of her eyes and her unusual tattoos, she
could be anyone, or no one, but this was the woman who would make or break his
space career.
Lieutenant Yancy
grunted an agreement and began to walk the autolift back to the heli-jet,
carefully stepping over the uneven ground as he guided the unit. David watched
them for a moment and then moved toward his second team. He glanced down at the
ground and caught sight of the wet reflection of light on tiny droplets of
blood spattered over fallen leaves. Dr. MacPherson must have come from this
direction, as well. He tracked the drops as he walked, noting the amount of
blood seemed to be greater as he reached his pilots.
“Major, check
this out,” Branscombe called to him, her strident voice ringing with
impatience.
“Is it the airjet
comp?”
“Nope. We don’t
know what the hell it is.”
On that cryptic
note, David moved a little faster. The blood trail also expanded, as if Dr.
MacPherson had paused for a few minutes here. David stepped to one side,
careful not to disturb a small pool of blood. Branscombe and the other two
pilots stood staring at the ground. The scent of pine hung heavy in the air.
David stepped over another broken pine branch and glanced up at the tree canopy
as a small shower of pine needles rained down on him. At least a dozen other
branches were twisted and broken in the trees above.
The smell of
burning plastics overrode the aroma of pine once again, and David flicked his
gaze back to the Lilly Cain 11 ground near his team’s feet. A puddle of melted
plastic lay in a long oval shape, some of it clearly being absorbed into the
soft bed of needles and soil. He’d never seen anything like it.
“Is it part of
the airjet?” David squatted down to get a little closer to the material.
“If it is, I
can’t imagine what it was or why it would just…melt like this.”
David frowned. He
knew the personnel on board the airjet, but what about cargo? Had the aircraft
contained something dangerous? News on the upcoming mission was tight, and
there’d been little explanation as to why a group of interplanetary settlers
needed a full flight team for defense. Perhaps what lay on the ground was a
hint of why the mission was so secretive. “Any of you got a sample kit on you?”
“I do.” Second
Lieutenant Sven Olens, the biggest bruiser David had ever met, pulled a small
kit from his backpack.
“Take a sample of
whatever the hell this is, and of some of the soil around here too. Branscombe,
you got record mode?”
“On for the
duration, Major.”
She would have
filmed their search and the discovery here. “Any sign of the airjet comp or the
rest of the crew?”
“No, but a lot of
the wreckage is too burned to ID much of anything.”
“The flames are
nearly out. When they called us in, they didn’t expect a long burn or call for
firefighters. No one expected to find much of anything. I think the comp is
still on board, and further survivors highly unlikely. Do we all agree?”
“Agreed.”
Branscombe spoke for the rest. At thirty- nine, she was the oldest pilot
applying for the Starforce defense mission, but she was also the best, and his
second in command.
“Good. File out
and search again for the comp or bodies, but after that I think we’ll hand the
rest of the search over to the clean-up crew. Nothing we can do here now.”
“I can’t believe
that anyone lived through it.” Lieutenant George Huff shook his head. “It’s
amazing, savvy?”
“Damn right.”
David looked down at the puddle of Dr. MacPherson’s blood. She’d
survived. And she saw what happened here. Perhaps the psychtech knows more
about this mission than I do.
Book Review:
Sometimes
I worry that books about Aliens will either be too Star Wars-like or too campy,
but this one was sensual, funny, and charming.
The story about an alien species coming to earth to check out the
population and see if earthlings were worthy of a treaty and to save from an
evil alien invasion is not new, but this story is written in such a charming
manner that it doesn’t seem clichéd at all.
The alien is a woman who crashes with a ship and ends up being mistaken
for the woman on the ship that also crashed.
David
and Alinna have an almost immediate soul connection. It’s one of those things where you just
connect with the person and you know you are going to be friends, lovers, or
whatever. To top it off, Alinna comes from a species that is sensual in
nature. She and David connect
physically, mentally, and emotionally.
The
book is smoking hot, tender, sexy, and will leave you panting for more. I give this book 4 out of 5 clouds and a
chili pepper rating of 7. And if you
meet any Inarrii men, call me immediately.
This product or book may have been distributed for review, this in no
way affects my opinions or reviews.
Juliann C. Whicker was raised with
chickens, goats, and a cow named Mrs. Mooley who everyone (neighbors included)
chased down the street in a small college town. She now lives in Southeastern
Ohio with her four children, husband, and all the ticks and poison ivy a soul
could crave.
