Starflight

With her back turned, she loosened each plait until her hair hung in waves that curled around her waist. Then she spun to face him and puffed a sigh.
“Fine. You caught me. I guess there’s no use pretending anymore.”
Doran settled in and waited for the punch line.
“I lured you onto this ship,” she said, “because I couldn’t get enough of your scintillating personality.”
There it was.
“Kiss me, Doran,” she cried, flopping onto the mattress with one arm slung over her eyes and the other clutched to h

With her back turned, she loosened each plait until her hair hung in waves that curled around her waist. Then she spun to face him and puffed a sigh.
“Fine. You caught me. I guess there’s no use pretending anymore.”
Doran settled in and waited for the punch line.
“I lured you onto this ship,” she said, “because I couldn’t get enough of your scintillating personality.”
There it was.
“Kiss me, Doran,” she cried, flopping onto the mattress with one arm slung over her eyes and the other clutched to her breast. “I burn for you, hotter than a thousand hells.”
He cocked his head to the side. “I think there’s an ointment for that.”

“I might have dirt under my fingernails and tattoos across my knuckles,” she told him, “but I can fix that with a hot bath and a visit to the flesh forger. You’re dirty in a place that can’t be washed. You’ll never change, and you’ll never make a difference. When you die, no one will miss you, because your life won’t matter.” She followed him down the stairs until they stood nose-to-nose at the base. “You don’t matter.”

A minute ago she wanted to break his jaw, and now she had to fight the urge to pat him on the head and give him a cookie. That had to be some kind of superpower. She finally understood how he got everything he wanted in life.

The captain grunted in understanding. “Ah, yes. Love—the great equalizer. It makes all of us stupid.”
A familiar ache opened up behind Solara’s breast, but she forced it down. She hated that Jace still had the power to hurt her from halfway across the galaxy. She hated even more that she’d given him that power—dropped her heart right into his waiting hands in exchange for a few sweaty fumblings and some pretty words.
“It’ll never happen again,” she insisted. “I’m smarter now.”

...these were her people and this was their journey together—messy and wild and wonderful. She had no idea what the future would hold for any of them, beyond possibilities as infinite as the stars.
And really, that was enough.

 “Cheating death was exhausting.” 

“Doran set it in front of her with a grin that made her want to slap him so hard his grandkids would feel it.”

"A sweet, young felon. Cute but combative. Oh yeah. Demarkus would love her to pieces."

“Please.” He swallowed hard and begged with those big blue eyes. “Please don’t leave me here.”
All the air trickled out of her lungs.
“Take me to the beaches,” he said, blinking down at her. “I won’t cause any trouble.”
How did he do that?
A minute ago she wanted to break his jaw, and now she had to fight the urge to pat him on the head and give him a cookie. That had to be some kind of superpower. She finally understood how he got everything he wanted in life.” 

“She glanced at their fused bodies and told him, “The nuns would say we’re not leaving enough room for the Holy Spirit.”  It took a second for Doran to find his breath because she’d stolen it. “That’s all right. The Holy Spirit doesn’t belong here. He would just get in the way.”

“Hey, slow breaths,” Cassia said.  Solara hadn’t realized she was gasping. “Right. Sorry.” 
“If you faint among pirates, don’t bother waking up.”  Oh god. That was not helpful.” 

— Starflight (Звездный полет) #1/2
— Starfall (Звездное падение) #2/2

Buddy-read with my amazing shipmateKaterina *wishers* let's hijack Starflight ship, get Doran and Rhy on the board and serf the universe together :D

Actual rating: 4.5

...flies a small ship Banshee manned by fugitives: a captain with a sugar bear pet; a bespectacled kleptomaniac; a star-crossed seducer; a mysterious girl with a shady past; a convicted felon; an heir to Spaulding empire. They are on the run from ruthless chief of Brethren pirates and his crew. But pirates are the least o

Buddy-read with my amazing shipmateKaterina *wishers* let's hijack Starflight ship, get Doran and Rhy on the board and serf the universe together :D

Actual rating: 4.5

...flies a small ship Banshee manned by fugitives: a captain with a sugar bear pet; a bespectacled kleptomaniac; a star-crossed seducer; a mysterious girl with a shady past; a convicted felon; an heir to Spaulding empire. They are on the run from ruthless chief of Brethren pirates and his crew. But pirates are the least of problems for a fearless (um, a figure of speech, of course) team of rebels: there's also Daeva - emotionless, modified space assassins who will stop at nothing until they catch and torture the needed information out of our heroes. The last but not the least in pursuit is the Solar League government: they too need something very valuable that can change the course of the whole universe. You are probably asking yourself: how these intergalactic shenanigans happened in the first place? Well, let me enlighten you.

Our MC Solara aka Lacy Vanderbilt, a vacationing socialite with a busted ankle (don't ask), was in dire need of transportation to an outer realms (some kind of a westward expansion on a galactic scale), where she wanted to start from the fresh page. By chance (or curse) she meets her former classmate Doran Spaulding aka Daro the Red/foot fetishist (don't ask). To say these two have a very strained relationship is to say nothing: they hate each other to the moon and back. After a few insults (mostly from Doran the dick) they decide to travel together: Solara as a servant girl and Doran as her master ( why does it feel like a line from BDSM?!). Doran is abominable toward Solara during the trip, and when his latest trick lands her outside the ship penniless and without any prospects, unless she wants to start selling her body for meal, Solara decides to take extreme measures. She stuns Doran (oops) and reverses their roles: now Doran is her slave and she is the master. Before:

“Let’s get something straight, Rattail. If I agree to finance your passage, the only words that will leave your mouth for the next five months are Yes, Mr. Spaulding. If you disappoint me in any way—if my every wish is not brought to fruition—I’ll drop your carcass at the first outpost. Do you understand?”

After the switch of identities, Solara hires a suspicious looking crew of an old rusty spaceship Banshee to deliver Solara to her new home. And somewhere on her way she plans to drop Doran off her person. But, of course, a twist of fate interferes with her plans and soon... well, what happens next you know from the beginning of my tale. And to know what happens after, you'll have to read the book. Let's better talk about characters and their relationships. As you already noticed Doran is a spoiled brat in the beginning. When I say he is spoiled I kidding you not. I wanted to smack and kick him in the balls all the time in the beginning, and the way he treated Solara for no serious reason, was the highest level of jackassary:

“I came to your suite in the middle of the night to bring you a glass of water when you were too lazy to walk to the bathroom. I cleaned your girlfriend’s vomit off the sofa cushions.” Solara’s voice raised a pitch. “For God’s sake, I even fetched her panties when you two left them in the elevator! I wanted to amputate my own hand after that!”

And his relationship with Solara will grow into friendship and then into something even more precious:

His heart ticked to a new rhythm, one that warned he was in trouble. Because this girl had left a mark on him, deep down where time wouldn’t erase it.

The rest of the team is no less wonderful than our MCs. They all have secrets and reasons to hide from the government. Cassia and Kane will get their own story in a companion novel, but already we see that there's something between these two:

“You seem to care an awful lot about my love life,” Kane told her, snatching the nuts. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous.”
Cassia drew a breath loud enough to tell anyone within listening distance that Kane had plucked a nerve. “Not in your most twisted fantasies!”
Kane leaned down until their eyes met. “My fantasies aren’t all twisted. I’ll tell you about them if you ask nicely.”

Starflight is a light sci-fi with romance and Melissa Landers writing advances the story to a new scale of levity. This book is so easy and enjoyable to read that I couldn't even find any flaws in the story, or even if I could, I just pushed them aside and continued my acquaintance with the book. Aside from my excitement with characters and language, the world-building is also detailed and well-thought through. Because Solara is a mechanic, we deal with lots of tech terms, but author manage to give all this information in a way that makes it interesting to read and explore. I am not a fan of boring detailed descriptions and in this book you will find none. Also the events of the book take place in a world without aliens. Some people will find it boring, maybe, because what interest to read about universe without other species but people? But I didn't find this element boring, it's like reading a book about globalization only on a universal scale and players have to fight for more space (literally and figuratively).

She recognized the Solar Territories from interstellar geography class. The Milky Way was divided like a dartboard into four sectors with Earth as the bull’s-eye and five rings moving out from it. The tourist rings were the closest, then came the colony planets, ore mines, and prison settlements, in that order. The Solar League headquarters were on Earth, along with most of the galaxy’s industry and wealth, so the farther away you traveled, the more rustic the surroundings. The fifth ring was the fringe, or the outer realm, which the government hadn’t annexed yet.

I highly recommend to read this book if you are looking for something light and funny, and once you start reading, you'll find yourself on the board of Starflight: with no boundaries and the whole universe to find your own adventure.