Returning to duty following his long recovery from the injuries he sustained during the events recounted in Heart Scarab, Shield Captain Bennet accepts a tour of duty in Fleet as flight captain on a dreadnought. The one saving grace is that it isn’t his father’s ship—bad enough that he can’t yet return to the Shield Regiment, at least he doesn’t have the added stress of commanding former lover … Fleet Lieutenant Flynn, knowing the fraternisation regulations will keep them apart.
Working on the material he collected himself on T18 three years before, Bennet decodes enough Maess data to send him behind the lines to Makepeace, once a human colony but under Maess control for more than a century. The mission goes belly up, costing Albion one of her precious, irreplaceable dreadnoughts and bringing political upheaval, acrimony and the threat of public unrest in its wake. But for Bennet, the real nightmare is discovering what the Maess have in store for humanity.
It’s not good. It’s not good at all.
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My overall feeling after finishing Makepeace can be summed up in ten words: Wait, I’m confused. Holy cow! He did what?! That’s disgusting! It all begins and ends with the cover which I may never be able to look at again. It is absolutely the perfect cover for this book, but all it can think about is EWWWW!!!! Oh wait, I need to do some backtracking here. Let me start from the beginning.
Bennet has finally been released back to duty after the injuries he sustained from his last mission, only he can’t return to Shield yet. So in the meantime, he accepts a tour of duty in Fleet as flight captain on a dreadnought. He’s been working on decoding the Maess data he collected from T18, which has him now investigating a former human colony that is controlled be the Maess on Makepeace. Things are not looking too good and he hopes he’s wrong but he puts together a mission to investigate what is going on. With the assistance of Commander Warwick on board the dreadnought Caliban and Captain Van Trion on the Shield ship Dhow, an infiltration plan is put in place and possibly rescue any humans they may find.
Where the previous book was more of an emotional rollercoaster, Makepeace is a return to how the series originally started: as a science fiction story with a little bit of romance on the side. The romance is actually where I am confused. No Flynn this time around. Instead, it is…complicated and completely unexpected. How is that possible and why did he even go there? I keep thinking I missed something because well…humph. Okay I’m struggling with it especially with that ‘OH!’ ending. However, for the sake of not giving things away, I’ll be moving on.
The Caliban, Warrick, and the goings on by the Maess on Makepeace was just a jaw dropping shock for me. One I think we were slowly being prepped for thorough the series, because you knew the Maess were not good from the get go. But, actually reading it in all its gloriously, disgusting details is more than enough to invoke full body shivers. Ms. Butler certainly has a very creative mind and has now provoked me into thinking why on Earth would anyone want to explore space?!
If anything Makepeace has provide is that this is a series that needs to be read in order, no skipping book or jumping in mid-series. There is quite a bit of build-up that is taking place over the series both with fighting the Maess as well as Bennet and his personal life. Both are equally intriguing for me because while I adore a complicated romance I really get off on a Sci-Fi story with all its technical details and what-if possibilities. This isn’t a series for everyone but for those of us who prefer to have their stories reaching the far distance of space and time, Taking Shield series is going to scratch that itch and leave you begging for more.