Reviewer: Holly Touch of Frost by S.E. Smith
Narrator: David Brenin
Series: Magic New Mexico #1
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: July 30, 2014
Format: Audiobook, eBook
Source: Audible Escape, Kindle Unlimited
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
Genres: Science Fiction, Paranormal Romance
Pages: 249
Length: 5 hours and 57 minutes
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Holly's 2019 GoodReads Challenge, Holly's 2019 New to Me Challenge
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Series Rating:
Lacey Adams lives in the small town of Magic, New Mexico, where she devotes herself to the animals at her Touch of Magic Animal Shelter. The strange assortment of animals helps heal the pain and loneliness inside her since the death of her husband three years before.
Frost is a Star Ranger. He travels the star systems, bringing intergalactic fugitives to justice. When a maximum-security fugitive escapes from the mining prison, he is sent after him. Only this time, the fugitive has violated a major law… he has traveled to a distant forbidden planet inhabited by a race that has not mastered space travel yet.
Now, he is in a race to find the fugitive before those on the planet known as Earth discover there are not one, but two aliens on their world. Things become complicated when Frost discovers his heart is not as frozen as he thought when a young human female is taken hostage by the fugitive. What he doesn’t anticipate is her unexpected resistance – both to the fugitive and to him.
Frost is forced to make a decision that is guaranteed to put him on the most wanted list when he follows his heart and kidnaps Lacey. He knows that some things are worth the risk. What he doesn’t know is that Lacey has a few secrets of her own.
* First published in the anthology, Feel the Heat.
Touch of Frost is the first book in the Magic, New Mexico series by S.E. Smith. This is the first book I’ve read by the author. I found it book while browsing the Audible Romance Package for sci-fi, then ended up downloading the ebook. The blurb is a bit misleading in that I expected a straight-up alien kidnapping story, but instead got a magically filled UF/F/SF.
Star Ranger (aka intergalactic Bounty Hunter) Frost is ready to retire to help his brother run a business on their home planet when he’s given one last assignment; Find escaped convict Taar and bring him back – dead or alive. Taar has stolen a transport and ended up on a primitive planet called Earth. Frost is determined to get this mission over with quickly, and figures it’ll be easy since Earth is filled with nothing but savages. He doesn’t expect the inhabitants of Magic, New Mexico to be filled with magical creatures of unimaginable power.
Lacey Adams is a widow who runs the Touch of Magic animal shelter in Magic. She and the other inhabitants of Magic hide in plain sight, using their magic as they see fit, but never exposing it to outsiders. She doesn’t have a choice when two alien species show up. Frost is determined to make her his, but Lacey won’t open her heart up again.
I really loved how the heroine kept saving herself – and often the hero, too. That was probably my favorite part of the book. Around the 60%-70% mark it kind of went off the rails for a bit and ended up being over-the-top campy, but it came back toward the end. Though it wasn’t perfect and some things really bothered me, I enjoyed the story overall. Definitely lighter fare, but fun. I’ll be trying more from this author soon.
Rating: 3.25 out of 5
Magic, New Mexico
