Without Hesitation is set a thousand years in the future. Earth has become a wasteland. Humans traveled into space to colonize other suitable planets. Labels and stereotypes are a thing of the past and gender and sexual identity are as fluid as love as humans strive to survive. Here we meet Everleigh, the commander of her ship named Nirvana. She is under the control of an evil madman, Caspar, who … who keeps her family captive. He sends her to Valinor to abduct the Empress Akacia. When she arrives, she is taken back by Akacia’s beauty and when the Empress fights back, Everleigh realizes she has met her match.
This book is an LGBTQ story with a female/female relationship.
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I loved the book it was a beautiful romance novel. I loved how the characters were developed and how the settings seemed so real.
***Very mild spoilers***
Okay, wow, I have a lot to unpack when it comes to this book. It’s a great read and really enjoyable. Though truth be told, I was sold a lot on the premise alone, I mean c’mon, enemies to lovers sapphic space romance, what’s not to love? And this story certainly delivered and has me eager to get my hands on the rest of the series.
What I really loved was the characters, especially Everleigh. She’s the kind of brooding anti-heroine I can get behind. She’s got every reason to brood and isn’t torturing her love interest for shits and giggles. Akacia, on the other hand, took me a little bit to warm up to because, at times, she comes off a smidge too saintly and perfect to be believable. I would have preferred her to be more morally gray from the start though she does grow a lot throughout the course of the book, and I appreciate that.
One of the things I didn’t love was how insta love it was. I mean, I’m a lesbian, so I get it, we find the girl of our dreams and pine and pine until either she falls for us or you know, we continue to pine until death, so I’m not knocking it, it just didn’t resonate with me, and I didn’t see how they could love each other so much until midway through the book when they are forced to rely on the other for survival. Even then, they still had a mountain of baggage to overcome and seemed to try and overcome it with impromptu make-outs and cuddles. And on paper, that sounds slightly audacious, but I was still here for it regardless. Their chemistry was hot, and I was totally sucked in. Another thing the author certainly does a great job with is throwing curveballs at the characters and us, the reader. This book has lots of great twists and turns, and the action quite simply doesn’t let up. There were lots of cool surprises throughout, and I literally could not stop turning the pages wanting to find out what happened next.
However, one of my few quibbles was with the world-building, which seemed a bit lackluster to me, and I didn’t get that grand space exploration feeling you’d expect for a science fiction book. Still, I’m not super picky on that. Just it could have used a bit more there. There were a lot of small things I kept going back and rereading, hoping they made sense, and they just didn’t – technology and all that seemed all over the place. It seemed a bit far-fetched to believe this book was set a thousand years in the future. If it weren’t for space travel and all, it wouldn’t have felt very science fictionesque to me. In fact, I had a lot of Firefly vibes throughout, not that I’m complaining. I honestly don’t mind making that comparison, but anyway, that was just the vibe and possible influence I got.
Overall, great start, great book. I don’t want to sound like I’m nit-picking or complaining because I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the characters, and the ending had me all in my feels, which is all I can ask from my romances. I will definitely continue with this series and pick up other books from this author in the future. It was a solid four-star read, and something tells me the next books will be even better. And I’m super excited to read them.
The characters are interesting and well drawn; their actions and personalities are realistic. The plot is well thought out and capably executed.