Minder Rising (Central Galactic Concordance #2)
by Carol Van Natta
My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Science Fiction Romance
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: MF
Blurb:
millennium into the future, all children are tested for minder talents, and the best are recruited for the Citizen Protection Service.Agent Lièrén Sòng is recovering from a near-fatal crash. He should want nothing more than to get back to using his talents to interrogate criminals for his covert CPS field unit, but being sidelined gains new appeal when he makes friends with a woman and her son. Imara Sesay, road crew chief and part-time bartender, breaks her ironclad rule never to get close to customers when she asks Lièrén to teach her son how to control his growing minder talents.
Unexpected deaths in his field unit make Lièrén suspect he isn’t a lucky survivor, he’s a loose end. He should pull away from Imara and Derrit to keep them safe, but when the local CPS Testing Center is entirely too interested in Derrit’s talents, Lièrén must make an impossible choice. Can he stay alive long enough to save Imara and her prodigy son?
My Review
After I finished listening to Overload Flux I dove right into Minder Rising afterwards. This is my re-read review and audiobook review as I read it in e-format the first time.
Just like the first time I was again surprised at the difference in tone that Minder Rising had compared to Overload Flux, but as I had now expected that I found I was able to enjoy it even more than the first read through. And while I love the first book a bit more than this one, Minder Rising is a great read and the difference in tone totally works for this story. Now knowing what’s coming next some of the hints and events had more impact.
This series has so much happening and quite a bit of foreshadowing and early hints going on and that makes it a delight to re-read. And spending time with the characters I’ve grown fond of certainly helps too.
I really like Lièrén, Imara and also Imara’s son Derrit and bartender Rayle (I had to look up both their names spelling from my previous review as someone due to the audio I had no idea how their names were spelled). The slow burn romance between Lièrén and Imara is so much fun to see unfold and I also liked seeing how Lièrén interacts with Derrit. I liked Rayle even more than in the first read. He’s such a fun character to read about.
Seeing Lièrén go from naive and sheltered to opening his eyes to what the CPS does and finding what he can do about it is great to see. And also how he opens his heart and finds his home by surrounding himself with people he cares about. In a sense both Lièrén and Imara’s lives really get upended and changed in this book and I love the last few chapters seeing where they end up.
Again the narration was so well done. I really like Nichole Poole’s way of narrating and I think her style fits this book well. She handles the accents really well and it was fun to hear her pronounce the foreign words this book has. I had to get used to Lièrén’s voice a bit for a while as it seemed a bit too close to Luka’s voice from book 1, but I ended up liking it in the end. Imara. Derrit and Rayle’s voice she handled really well and their voices really reflected their personalities. I am not sure if it’s because of the audio or the re-read, but I find it easier to follow the story and the multiple threads and hints than when I first read it, which is great.
To summarize: I loved listening to Minder Rising. I really enjoyed the narration and as I love this series so much it’s great to re-read it this way. I liked getting to spend some time with Lièrén, Imara, Derrit and Rayle. See imara and Lièrén fall in love. And see how Lièrén’s life changes so much over the course of this book and seeing him become more aware of what the CPS is doing and fighting for what he believes is the right mission. All the little hints of foreshadowing are easier to spot now that I have an idea of what’s coming next. Nichole Poole does a great job with the narration, she handles the accents so well and I like hearing how she pronounces the foreign words. On to Pico’s Crush next!
Links:
– Goodreads
– Amazon
– Audible
– Tantor Audio
– Google Play
– Kobo
You can also read my review on Goodreads.
It was great how she switched things up and gave a different tone even though its the same world and overall plotting. Lieren and Imara were great and I liked the friends to romance set up, too.
Yes! LOL, it is horrid trying to figure out how to spell the names when you only get to hear them.
I thought it was great to see how he came to learn the truth about the CPS, too. Things got really exciting then.
Such a great series and Nicole Poole is a perfect narrator match.
Sophia Rose recently posted…Review: Demon’s Mercy by Rebecca Zanetti
Exactly the change in tone really worked here. Lieren and Imara were so fun to read about.
It’s so weird I thought the names were spelled one way and then I checked my first review and saw I had it all wrong.
I am listening to another book by Nicole Poole now and I really like her narration style.
I do really need to get organised with audiobooks! And I am delighted to see that you have The High Ground – I hope you love this one as much as I did. And the series just goes on delivering:))
This series is awesome in audiobook. I hope you can give them a try sometime :).
So far I am really enjoying The High Ground, I am so glad I spotted it on your blog. The narrator is the same as this the one who did this series by Carol Van Natta and I really like her narration.
And good to know the series keeps going strong. I noticed book 2 is also out in audio already, so I can continue with that one right after this one if I want to :).
Sometimes a change in tone can be a problem, other times it still works well. Glad this was a time when it worked! I love that about rereads too, how you can pay attention to foreshadowing and details you couldn’t before. I’m currently doing a series reread that has lots of little things like that. Ah, yeah, that’s the problem with audio, I never know how anyone name is spelled lol. I’m glad you’re enjoying this, even on the reread!
I am glad in this book the change in tone worked. I really enjoyed re-reading this series and how I noticed other things and could focus more on other aspects now.
The names really are confusing in audio as I have no idea how anything is spelled and how I wanted to type it was so different from how it was spelled.
It really is an awesome series and I am glad I decided to reread it 🙂