Review: Pico’s Crush by Carol Van Natta – Audiobook

Pico’s Crush (Central Galactic Concordance #3)
by Carol Van Natta

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Science Fiction Romance
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: MF

Blurb:
Trouble comes to paradise when a serial killer chooses a galaxy-famous college campus for his hunting ground.

A galactic security specialist expects a quiet vacation visit to his daughter’s college campus. Instead, he finds himself battling for the safety of the students with old friends and an ex-military squadmate fighting at his side. Can they find a cunning serial killer before he finds his next target?

When ex-military sniper and current personal security specialist Jerzi Adams visits his daughter Pico’s quiet college on the paradisiacal planet of Nila Marbela, he doesn’t expect emergency evacuations and rogue robots. Nor does he expect to renew a friendship with a former squadmate.

Explosions, sabotage, and assaults used to be Andra De Luna’s daily routine, but she gave it up for a professorship at a prestigious university. Now, she’s flung back into that world, with an entire floating campus of students to protect.

When the hunt for a cunning serial killer leads Jerzi’s old friends Luka and Mairwen (Overload Flux) to town, there’s trouble in paradise as the body count starts to rise. Either the world of academia has gone from merely cutthroat to downright deadly or more sinister forces are in conflict, with the campus as a battleground. Without an improvised miracle or two, no one’s going to make it out alive.

My Review

It was a joy to re-read this book and this time in audiobook. I felt the start was a less engaging this time, but that might be because I already knew what was going to happen. The start is a bit quieter with most of the action toward the end. I found it much easier to follow all the events toward the end of the book in the action packed part this time along, whether that’s due to the re-read or audiobook version I don’t know. Although I had trouble visualizing the campus and all the building on the floater and who was were at times.

One of my favorite parts about this book is how we get to see most of the previous main characters again. I really like the conversation Luka and Liéren have. And seeing Jerzi again is fun too, this time he gets his own romance. Andra is a perfect match for him. I loved how they talked things through at the end. And there’s also a romance going on between Pico and Sojaire. Both romances are great and I also love seeing a bit of Lukas and Mairwen again. I like all the characters and how they have their own personality and how they handle situations in a clever way.

This time around I was better able to see the relevance of the villain storyline and knowing what’s going to happen next it was great to see how the build up starts here. This book is so full with foreshadowing, build up and characters that it can feel a bit full at times, it’s also such an important and impactfull book in this series.

The narration for this series is awesome. I really like how the narrator did Pico’s voice. And with all the male leads together in one book I was better able to appreciate the subtle differences each of their voices has. At first I thought them more similar, but hearing them next to each other it’s clear they do all sound different. I continue to be impressed with how she handles the accents and foreign words. Andra has a Spanish accent and her voice was well done and the Spanish words sounded well pronounced, not that I have heard a lot of Spanish, but it sounded great to my ears.

To summarize: I loved this series and was happy to re-read Pico’s Crush in audio format. I enjoyed experiencing the story a second time, the start felt a bit more slow, but that’s okay. I liked the action packed part later on in the book and was better able to keep the storylines and what was going on in my mind this time. I like seeing some of the previous main characters again in this book. Jerzi and Andra are great together and I liked how things got resolved. The plot is great and I like the foreshadowing and build up and how I was better able to see the relevance of the villain’s point of view this time. The narration is done amazing just like the previous books. The accents and foreign words are well done and I also was able to appreciate even more how she makes each character sound different. All in all I can’t recommend this series enough either in e-format or audio.

Links:
– Goodreads
– Amazon
– Audible
– iTunes
– Google Play
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads.

Do you like seeing the villain’s point of view in books?