Quick-Kill is a self-made assassin and tekhead. But after a simple job blows up in her face, she finds herself running for her life. A life that is changed forever.
Never, ever, let yourself never get caught… who knows what may happen?The forgotten, seedy backwater planet of Plenty (the most unfortunately-named world there ever was), is no place for a girl to grow up parentless and alone. But … to grow up parentless and alone. But self-styled, femme fatale and genius gun-for hire, Quick-Kill Jane, was no normal kid. She learned her trade early on, making a name for herself. And by the time she became an adult, everyone feared and respected that name in equal measure.
In what should’ve been a straightforward job—one of the many she had built her reputation upon—she finds herself in pursuit of small-time criminal and wife-beater, Rollo Barla. But things do not go to plan.
She learns that the contract on Rollo was ordered by the Cabal—a loose network of galactic criminals, and that they, and the equally shady Galactic Secret Service, were now in competition to chase her down.
Quick-Kill must use all her considerable talents, skills and guile to stay one step ahead. But events take an unexpected and extraordinary turn.
A twist that will change Quick-Kill’s life forever…
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This book could definitely have been great. More than great really. Once you finally figure out what’s going on with the plot it’s actually not that bad. But something about the writing felt off. Way off. The first moment that took me out was on the first page. When Quick Kill for zero reason at all takes off her hat just so that the author can write about her beautiful long flowy hair. My initial reaction was, she’s an assassin. She would either have her hair out already or not bother to take off her hat. If a male assassin was killing someone in a baseball cap they are not about to take it off mid kill just to show off their dark curly locks. It was all sorts of odd.
Then referring to the girlfriend as the latest squeeze while also saying they were a real item was contradictory. Like latest squeeze equates to latest conquest. My brain was considering her having multiple squeezes but before I could commit apparently this was a real girlfriend. Then that got topped off by saying Quick Kill wouldn’t have to pay anymore once she settled her rent and bills? Yo, this is legit still paying. Rent does not go away. The book continued in this show-offy yet I’m not really showing off kind of way.
Lots of talk about how she made her own weapons, which is fine but it felt more ‘oh look what I can do’ than ‘I’m a pretty damn good engineer’. Lots of talk about not trusting anyone, more I modified this weapon, I’m going to kill this person and the cycle repeats. It kind of got old hearing how she was too awesome to need help and then seconds later being all I didn’t get this far by not knowing how to roll with the punches. This sort of anger I don’t need anyone attituded felt cocky instead of being smart self-preservation when she surely would’ve died without intervention.
Basically, this read like a man’s fantasy version of what being a female super-assassin would be and every time I thought ‘do guys even still talk like this’, or ‘this guy is really annoying’ I remembered Quick Kill is actually a woman. It definitely gave me teenage boy fantasy assassin dreams but in an adult mind kind of vibes. Little things like saying going at it instead of saying fuc;?ng, or any other adultier version of having sex. I’d expect an assassin to have adultier speech patterns.
The plot itself, that I liked. Secret information that latched itself onto her brain as a means of self-preservation, getting stuck, and now two versions of bad guys are after and she’s lucky enough to get picked up by the lesser of two evils. This part of the story was all sorts of fun. The action was fun to read as well. I’m def here for good intense almost over before they start gunfights cause really in a gun war things happen fast if you’re a good shot and Jane is.
The woman who saves her is the best thing up in this story. Loved her. Probably the only thing character-wise in this book that didn’t bug me.
Going back to the first page/chapter, Jane is forever talking about how she has to get home to her girl but right from the moment she took of her hat to show off her hair she stalls. Honestly, the first chapter really set the tone for the kind of repetitive cycle the story goes through. And, plot spoiler, the ending made it all make sense. Gender reassignment. Now it makes sense the book reads like a testosterone fantasy of what a female assassin would be like (now I’m getting repetitive) because, surprise surprise, Jane is a man now and might be for the rest of the series. The only thing cool about this was that the woman who saved her obviously used to be a man before reassignment.
Quick Kill was a little flat and the actual writing style needed to be adultier to pull this story off. The real letdown was the ending. I read my percentage and when I realised I was only at 44 percent and I had finished I was shocked. Then the three freebie chapters for book two still didn’t take up much space, there was a lot of page matter at the end taking up loads of space so I’m’ reading thinking the things in this book will resolve and new things will pop up in the next book to challenge Jane but nope. I can’t even be certain what happened in this book will be tied up in the next either. Almost like it’s a one plotline dragged through the whole series kinda story. I mean it was an okay ending but it didn’t feel like the story I was reading was over and this was leading on to something new. It felt more like you thought you would get answers but na. You have to buy book two.
Lastly, she’s been told that someone tried to hide her identity. There’s something unique and highly expensive about her DNA. Most humans suffer from identity crisis at some point in their life and she has a chance to find out who she is and she’s so I’m Quick Kill Jane that with that type of evidence she has no interest in finding out why someone did this to her. It’s just another oddity. Not being ready to delve into it is one thing but the stubborn arrogance of it all makes it seem like the only way she’d be interested is by force.
I wanted to like this, and if you remove Jane and some of the writing style the plot itself is fairly solid. Unfortunately, everything around it gave me juvenile feels. Quick kill herself was too stubborn and into herself to take seriously and the only characters I cared about were the side characters and one of them could very well be a bad guy and the other, well he met his fate. Even the guy who got killed in the first chapter was likeable. This book definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously which is more than okay but it wasn’t funny or quirky or insane enough to make the male fantasy feel of it work to an advantage. Instead it kinda pulls it down, and like I already said gave off teen male fantasy but in an adult mind kind of vibes.
Would I recommend it, sure. If you’re looking for something light quick and doesn’t require much emotional energy on your part to get into it, it will work. If you’re looking for something a bit more serious and intense then it might not work for you.