Speculative Fiction

The last thing she expects is an instant mating with a handsome alien warrior…just before they are abducted by the deadly Kantos.

Commander Kaira Chand of the Australian Air Force knows the meaning of loss. She lost both her beloved husband and her father over recent years, and she vows never to let a man close again. As head of security for a secret weapons facility in the Australian desert, she’s fighting to protect the scientists working to defend Earth from invasion. That includes working with their allies, the Eon Warriors. What she never expected in her wildest dreams was to find herself instantly mated to a handsome, silver fox alien warrior.

Medical Commander Thane Kann-Eon lives to heal. He’s dedicated to keeping his crew aboard the warship, the Rengard, whole and healthy. Unlike his fellow warriors, he knows he’ll never mate. There hasn’t been a mating in his family for generations. Then a petite Terran commander changes everything. He’s instantly drawn to Kaira, and as soon as their hands touch, he’s stunned by the deluge of emotion that crashes over him. An unheard-of instant mating.

In the midst of their shocking connection, Kaira and Thane find themselves abducted by a Kantos strike team. Taken aboard a battlecruiser, they soon realize the insectoid aliens nabbed the wrong couple, and they are marked for execution.

Now they face a wild race for survival that will take them to a distant, deadly world. They’ll both struggle with their raw, intense mating bond, against the backdrop of a Kantos proving ground where everything is out to kill them.

‘Soul of Eon’ admittedly didn’t start off too well for me, even though I really wanted Kaira’s story and the tragedy that she’d personally overcome, only that there was instalove happening from the get-go with an inexplicable mating with the Eon medical commander.

But things do get a little interesting as I grudgingly read on: it’s a mating that Kaira is entirely uninterested in while Thane fights off his own urge to complete the mating bond, given how much Kaira’s heart had been bruised in the last few years.

It’s the trials and obstacles they face—short and intense—that bring them together, but what I really wanted was to read about Kaira’s eventual change of heart in a way that delved into depth, emotions and feel with perhaps, even a little more angst. That’s not really Hackett’s style and focus in all her books though and this rather quick turnaround (with the implication on falling in love because of the non-stop back-to-the-wall scenarios they face coming through too stronly) just proved too disappointing here.

The advantage of writing a story that takes place entirely off-world is that Hackett’s imagination runs free here, manifesting in the weird and breathless adventures both Kaira and Thane have as they run from one grotesque alien after another intent on killing them. There are some twists and turns here, using the classic ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ trope which kept me glued and with each layer getting added on, perhaps there’s really something I can look forward to in this series after all.