Once a rehab guard, Kobalt is happy to spend his days now serving as supercargo on the merchant ship the Lucky Number. His days of keeping criminals in line and taking ridiculous, alcohol-fueled vacations to the coliseums of Bangkok are well and happily behind him.
That doesn't mean his life doesn't occasionally still come with excitement, however. The seven day pass he was looking forward to enjoying with plenty of peace and quiet is now threatened by signs of a possible smuggler, and where there's smugglers, there's people willing to do whatever it takes to get their contraband to where it belongs—including kill.
His world is thrown further into upheaval when the hunt for a smuggler brings him face to face with a man he never thought he'd see again: a former prisoner that Kobalt once thought about in ways no guard should.
Megan is a long time resident of queer romance and keeps herself busy reading and writing it. She is often accused of fluff and nonsense. When she’s not involved in writing, she likes to cook, harass her wife and cats, or watch movies. She loves to hear from readers and can be found all over the internet.
There was just something off about the worldbuilding. Somehow there was so much that I felt it bogged down the action, but still not enough for me to really get the gist of the universe the characters were living in. Maybe it just needed to be a much longer book. It's been so long since I read the other books in this series that the other characters were only vaguely familiar to me, and so maybe the world would be more fleshed out if I'd read these all at once.
I liked Kobalt, and I got a better sense of Cherry toward the end and ended up liking him well enough, too. I got a kick out of the descriptions of Cherry's cat-like qualities, but I thought his "magic" was a bit random and underutilized.
I did like this well enough, in the end, but not as much as many other works from this author.
New pairing with familiar characters. Cherry a former criminal and Kobi a former guard. Plenty of action, sex, a bit of kidnapping and blackmail, as well as spoilers for Jewels of Bangkok. The duo were sweet.
I have to say that I haven't read the other books in the series but I could follow along fine.
In 100pgs Megan Derr, and a 3rd book in the series as well, was able to give us a pretty good world building, currency and politics. I enjoyed that very much. We also got to know Kobalt and Cherry some, but not a lot. The story pretty much leaves us where those two begin and since before that we were on the go trying to bring down a criminal and a conspiracy, I can't say I felt the chemistry between those two. The chremistry was there but they went from 0 to 100, what with all their pent-up feelings and emotions had when Kobalt was a guard and Cherry a prisoner. Did that chemistry though came across? No, not really. Like Kobalt, it felt like everyone knew and we were left trying to catch up.
A lovely story bringing back some of the beloved characters from the Infinitum Government and introducing some new equally loveable ones. A great entertainement.