Monday, June 29, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Chaos Reigning by Jessie Mihalik


Chaos Reigning is the final book in Jessie Mihalik's "The Consortium Rebellion" trilogy, a space opera romance series that began with Polaris Rising (Reviewed Here) and continued with Aurora Blazing (Reviewed Here).  I've really enjoyed this series - it might be what some could consider "trashy" - but it's very good at what it is, with aspects of space opera, spy novels, and oh so much romance, lust, and sexy moments.  Add in a bunch of strong heroines - a different one for each novel - and you get a really fun series that I have gladly read at a time when everything around us is so damn depressing.  So I was praying this book would come off my library hold as soon as possible, and when it did I read it immediately, within 24 hours.

And I think honestly Chaos Reigning is my favorite of the trilogy.  Book 1 featured a lust filled romance with a heroine who couldn't admit - to herself and others - that her feelings were more than lust; whereas Book 2 was more of a slow burn romance between people who wouldn't admit their mutual attraction until a final act explosion.  This book switches it up by being somewhere in the middle - plenty of lust, admitted mutual attraction not too late, but things get in the way repeatedly.  Oh and you once again have a kick ass heroine constantly underestimated by her enemies with a secret to hide as she tries to protect all she cares about - which was awesome in previous books - but here you honestly get my favorite supporting cast (and love interest) in the series.  This is not a serious series for the most part - again, I don't think trying to think about the implications of the setup of this series works very well - but it is oh so much fun.


----------------------------------------------Plot Summarry--------------------------------------------------------
Catarina "Cat" von Hasenberg is the youngest member of her High House, one of the three families/corporations that are the major power in the galaxy.  Publicly she's taken a persona as the bubbly and aloof young woman, not worth worrying about, but she knows she's just as sharp as her siblings in her own way.  And then of course there's her secret - that her cruel father altered her genes to make her essentially a super-soldier, despite such practices being highly dangerous and a capital crime for all involved.  Cat is far from incapable or harmless, which is why she chafes when people, especially her siblings, seem to believe some of her public persona is true and that she needs protection.

So when her intelligence expert sister Bianca tries to burden Cat with protection for a spy mission, Ca tries to run away on her own.....and fails.  Soon she finds herself burdened not just with a bodyguard, but one Alexander Sterling, the way too attractive man mean to pretend to be her lover in public.  Cat wants nothing to do with protection - least of all an outsider who could discover her secret - but she finds herself unable to get away from Alex....and even worse, unable to shake the feelings of lust she gets when seeing him.

And when things go to hell, and the galaxy, and her family's bases, bursts into flame, Cat will have no choice to rely on Alex if she wants to survive and possibly save everyone she cares about, even if that means letting him in closer than she's ever let anyone before.....
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I'll admit, I was a bit worried about Chaos Reigning from the book description.  Oh, I knew it'd be a fun space opera romance, with some very good sex scenes - I reserved it fairly quickly for a reason.  But the description sounded very much like the plot might repeat the prior book's structure: a heroine with a tragic secret which makes her more capable but she dares not let others figure out and who is considered weak due to a sickness - plus a love interest who is overprotective and paternalistic in terms of letting her do what she needs to do.....Aurora Blazing made that structure work amazingly well, but it was my least favorite part of that book (especially the love interest's paternalism) and I didn't feel the need to repeat that again.

I needn't have worried.  Chaos Reigning avoids both of those pitfalls: Cat's secret is that she's essentially a Genesis Project supersoldier - a genetic modification which has been a major part of the past two books and is not wholly out of the blue.  Moreover, the reader should easily have guessed that Alex and his partner Aoife - who were introduced in the last book - are also Genesis Project supersoldiers, so the secret is one that is essentially shared between Cat and her love interest, and thus unlike in the last book, it doesn't take basically the entire book for it to be spilled, they recognize it in each other fairly quickly.  Partly for that reason, and partly because Alex is a different person than prior love interest Ian, Alex also isn't an overprotective or paternalistic jerk at any point in the book - he's protective sure, but is still willing to let Cat do what she needs to do, even if he will step in when he thinks she needs help.

The result is two main characters, and the romance between them, that I really liked a lot.  Cat adopted the bubbly silly girl persona, and can play it really well but naturally chafes against it, especially with her siblings' over-protectiveness making it seem like they also believe it (the reader knows that's not true from the prior books, but Cat doesn't).  As a result, she's bold in her actions, taking decisive steps towards her goals, no matter how risky, even as she desperately tries to hide her secret.  And while her bubbliness may be an act, her caring behavior for her underlings or even just the lay people of the galaxy is genuine, making her easy to root for.  Since we don't get to see inside Alex's head we get to know less about him, but he's strong and caring and his willingness to let Cat choose her own actions makes him a really welcome relief as a love interest.

And the chemistry between them is first rate, to go along with a very very fun romance, the best in the series.  The two admit their mutual attraction fairly early so we're not in for the slow burn of Bianca and Ian in the second book, but aren't as sex-happy as Ada & Loch in the first book, with us being somewhere in the middle.  Which is not to say we don't have a number of Sexy scenes - culminating of course with a full sex scene eventually - along the way as they attempt to find time in between the chaos of what's happening.  Mihalik is fantastic in writing these scenes, and honestly they might be her best of the series, so ummm, yeah, they're great.  At this point if you're reading this series you're reading it at least in part for the steamyness of the romance, and man is this some great steamyness.

All this follows through with a space opera plot that keeps the protagonists on their toes as they try to figure out what's behind all the chaos happening in the block and more importantly, how to take back control.  The two major side characters in this book, Aoife and Cat's best friend Ying are fantastic fun in their own small ways and the plot allows for a number of well done action sequences as well.  There's more LGBTQ representation in this book than I recall in the prior books which I also appreciated, even if the main relationship is a hetero one.

It's not a perfect book or even an absolute fave despite how much fun it is - the antagonists here are entirely generic and boring and the best antagonist in this trilogy is surprisingly sidelined and has no significant impact.  Moreover, despite Cat's acts of generosity, it's still essentially a story of a Noble woman and her fight for her space kingdom (sorta) and romance, without really thinking about the other people out there with less means - again this is not a series you go into thinking about the serious themes that could be relevant, as it's shown no interest in discussing them mainly, but it's still a minor letdown 3 books in.

But overall, Chaos Reigning is a lot of fun, and I really really needed it.  Recommended. 
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