Calamity by Constance Fay

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5/5

4.5/5 - A fast-paced, hard sci-fi space adventure with open door M/F romance.

I love sci-fi romance, but it's difficult to find sci-fi romance between two humans (aliens just aren't for me), which is why I was thrilled to read Calamity by Constance Fay. The first chapter grabs you by your ill-fitting body armour and refuses to let go for the entire book.

We meet our FMC, Temperance, the second in command on a spaceship with a scouting crew. She and her captain (her secret lover) are running after being found scouting too close to a privately owned and heavily militarized area on a desolate planet. As they reach the safety of their ship, the intern, runs over and gives the captain a more-than-friendly kiss, revealing he's been secretly dating both of them. My heart! It's the perfect set up for the years later when Temperance is now the captain of the ship, with her crew of banished, morally flexible scouts.

Temperance is convinced to take a too-good-to-be-true job scouting a mostly empty planet, for the money. She is also told she needs to bring a security expert, the son of the man who hired her, who has clearly had gene mods to look like a Greek god. As the crew begin their mission, they quickly realize all is not as it seems.

The banter between our tall and handsome security expert and our no-nonsense captain is so much fun and keeps the story light in parts where the action and drama get intense. This is the first in the series, and I can't wait for the next one. There is no cliff-hanger ending, but the framework is set for the next adventure of our team of found-family misfits.

Paige Reisenfeld does the narration for the audiobook and I loved it. She did a great job switching between the male and female cast, making it easy to identify the characters based on their voices. She does the ghostly soft voice of a deadly ex-monk, and the gentleness of the voice juxtaposed with the character's deadliness is sublime.

This book is best listened to at the bottom of a cavern that you just fell down with your distractingly good-looking enemy/security expert.