Trouble comes to paradise when a serial killer chooses a galaxy-famous college campus for his hunting ground. A galactic security specialist expects a quiet vacation visit to his daughter’s college campus. Instead he finds himself in battling for the safety of the students, with old friends and an ex-military squad-mate fighting at his side. Can they find a cunning serial killer before he finds … before he finds his next target?
“A space opera packed with diverse characters, intricate world-building, and plenty of intrigue” ~ Anna Hackett, USA TODAY Bestselling Author of the Hell Squad series
When ex-military sniper and current personal security specialist Jerzi Adams visits his daughter Pico’s quiet college on the paradise-like planet of Nila Marbela, he doesn’t expect emergency evacuations and rogue robots. Nor does he expect to renew a friendship with former squad-mate.
Explosions, sabotage, and assaults used to be Andra De Luna’s daily routine, but she gave it up for a professorship at a prestigious university. Now she’s flung back into that world, with an entire floating campus of students to protect.
When the hunt for a cunning serial killer leads Jerzi’s old friends Luka and Mairwen (Overload Flux) to town, there’s trouble in paradise as the body count starts to rise. Either the world of academia has gone from merely cutthroat to downright deadly, or more sinister forces are in conflict, with the campus as a battleground. Without an improvised miracle or two, no one’s going to make it out alive.
Come along for the next wild ride in the Central Galactic Concordance series—get your copy of Pico’s Crush today!
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Pico’s Crush is a complete story. It can be enjoyed without having read the series, but your experience will be enhanced if you’ve read the previous books.
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The Central Galactic Concordance series:
• Overload Flux (Book 1)
• Minder Rising (Book 2)
• Zero Flux (Novella 2.5)
• Pico’s Crush (Book 3)
• Jumper’s Hope (Book 4)
more
Pico’s Crush is the latest in what has pretty much established itself as one of my favorite sci-fi romantic suspense series. A dad takes his vacation to visit his daughter at university, a pair of consulting detectives are tracking a serial killer, and a government worker heads to a lush tropical island planet for a vacation. Naturally, it doesn’t take long for things to get dangerously exciting for them all.
As the third book in the Central Galactic Concordance futuristic sci-fi series, Pico’s Crush doesn’t make a good place to start. The worldbuilding is not as detailed out and its understood that the reader already has the lay of things. Also, most of the characters who show up as main players were introduced in the previous books as were some of the ongoing situations.
The book begins with ex-military sniper and now security specialist, Jerzi Adams taking his vacation to go visit his daughter, Pico, at her university on a distant world. One of her teachers is an old military unit friend, Andra De Luna. They enjoy catching up and Andra sees Jerzi’s presence as a great thing when she needs to consult someone about odd things happening in and around the school’s science and medical labs. There is an attraction between the two, but they both want to keep things at a friendship level because Jerzi isn’t staying so Andra doesn’t want to fall for him and break her heart when he must go. Then, for Jerzi’s part, he is convinced after his wife left and broke his heart that he’s not good at relationships though he knows Andra is nothing like his ex-wife. Meanwhile, a friend of Pico, Jerzi’s daughter, gets attacked and the detail of the attack is all too familiar to Luka Foxe and Mairwen Morganthur who have arrived on the trail of a serial killer. Things escalate and everyone has to work together just to survive the situation that has blown wide open.
This was an interesting segment in the series. There were definitely a lot of players and plot threads that were separate and yet intertwined. I had no trouble following it all. There is situation away from the main action involving a secret Citizen’s Protection Operative and his strange menagerie who are working some shady activities, Jerzi and Andra’s reunion and slow burn romance, Pico’s young love romance, Luka and Mairwen’s investigation, and a plot going on at the university that explodes into something huge. The first half of the book has some exciting blips, but it is mostly setting up for what is coming in the sensational second half. It wrapped up well, but still left some tantalizing ongoing series threads open for the next book.
The world of these stories is drawn so well that I have no trouble feeling that I’m in a futuristic galaxy out among the stars where many of the people have psychic talents of varying degrees and types, the government has its good and corrupt members and agendas, and there are a great group of diverse peoples.
Nicole Poole continues as the series narrator much to my supreme delight. She brings these books a great extra layer that has me riveted to the story of these people with her voices, accents, pacing, and tone.
In summary, this was another strong installment in a series that continues to make me thirst for more and not want to put it down once I start. The blend of sci-fi and romantic suspense should draw a larger group of readers/listeners and the author’s writing is well worth the look-see.
I like the play on words in the title – Pico, the daughter of “Commander Crush” and Pico, student sighing after a certain oblivious medic. I also really like watching two romances unfold in the context of a high-conflict raid on an university campus and seeing how certain students of applied engineering techniques stepped up to defend those the university’s less-than-stellar security could not. Young adult romance, mature adult romance, pirate raids, guerrila activity, bureaucratic infighting and political intrigue – what is not to like about this novel?
Loved this one and the first two in the series. Definitely recommend reading her stories.
Pico’s Crush is the exciting third book in the Central Galactic Concordance series. I really enjoyed the first two books in this series and this book was just as good. One things I especially liked about this book is how it bring the plot lines and characters from the first two books together and also introduces us to some new characters.
At first I thought Pico’s Crush would be about Pico and her crush. Then once I started reading I thought it would be Jerzi’s story and romance, whom we already met in books. Eventually I can only conclude it’s both of those and more. Yes Pico is one of the main characters, but Jerzi too and Jerzi’s love interest has a big role to play too and Pico’s crush turns out to be the assistant of Mairwen and Luka, who play a role in this book too. It was great.
The story is mostly about a serial killer who makes the campus unsafe. Pico studies at the campus and Andra teaches there. Jerzi is visiting his daughter and Luka and Mairwen are following the serial killer, which brings them all together on this planet. And then things start going wrong. There is a scene toward the end of the book that takes several chapters and with how little I read each evening it could be a bit hard to follow and keep everything straight as it’s a pretty long sequence of scenes with lots of characters involved. But it also made for a great action and danger packed part.
The story is told from the multiple point of views. While I love the multiple point of views, it did cause the book to feel a little less focused and less small scoped than the first two ones. Which worked, but at the same time I felt like Jerzi and Andra’s romance and Pico and Sojaire’s romance got a bit less attention than the romances in the first two books. Nevertheless both romances still were worked out really well and I really felt the romances. Pico and Sojaire were so cute together and I thin they made for a great couple once they got past their misunderstandings. I also liked Jerzi and Andra, who both didn’t have had the best history when it came to romance now find each other.
I really liked seeing Mairwen and Luka again. They are probably my favorite couple of this series and it was so fun to see them again. And it’s amazing how well Carol Van Natta writes them even when seen from another point of view. Sometimes characters seem very different when the author writes them from another perspective and I was totally impressed how Mairwen was still typically Mairwen even when seen from one of the other character’s perspective. Same with all the characters actually, but Mairwen has such a distinctive personality that with her you notice it even more. I loved the meeting between Liéren and Luka, it was totally awesome to read, although I am not fully sure what the significance of that meeting will be yet. And the scene where Mairwen had to handle the kids was quite funny.
There isn’t much mystery about who’s behind the attacks on campus as we get the bad guys perspective as well. The bad guys were pretty nasty and creepy and I have the feeling we haven’t seen the last of them yet. But even with the lack of mystery it is still great to see it all play out. I am a bit uncertain how some things tied together or maybe I missed some subtle hints as the story can be quite complex at times.
I liked how this book tied the previous ones together and also adds some pieces of world building. Things all come together and fall on it’s place. It also is an important book in terms of continuity and while it always was obvious this series was part of one universe, this book also ties al the individual storylines together as one big whole. There is more we learn about the CPS and how they work. And it was fun to see another planet as well. There are also some different minder gifts we see in action with Sojaire, Pico and Jerzi all having minder abilities.
To summarize: this was another great book in this series. It’s filled with action, a great story, romance and an awesome cast of characters. It also ties the previous books together and has a bunch of recurring characters as well as new ones. The author does a great job with the characterization of all the characters and I liked reading about all the characters. It was awesome to see Luka and Mairwen again and Liéren too. This book had two romances going on, Pico and Sojaire and Jerzi and Andra, I liked both romances and it was great to see them all play out. I really enjoyed this book and I am curious about the next book and to see how everything what happened in this book will be relevant later on in the series.