The Unlikely Pair by Jax Calder. View Book on Goodreads | My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved The Unlikely Pair. So I am starting this review with a resounding recommendation to read this book as soon as you can. It swept me along and I found myself surprised at how much I had invested in the characters, who at first were difficult for me to understand.

In the end, I shed tears and rooted for the MCs to get together and loved this book so much, it was such a great read. I now have to go back and read book one of this series, and wait impatiently for book three, which won’t come out until 2025! That seems like forever away!

Potential Spoilers, you are warned!

This review may contain some spoilers because there are things I want to talk about! You can read the Unlikely Pair soon, it releases on August 7, so not much longer to wait! However, if you don’t want to be spoiled you might just want to take my strong recommendation to read it and revisit this review once you’ve read it for yourself!

British Politics

Upon starting this book I was worried that it was going to be heavy handed on the explanations of British politics in it, which I know next to nothing about. I didn’t want to be bludgeoned with information dumps to get us ignorant Yanks up to speed. Thankfully, that’s not how Calder approached the necessary explanations into British Political arena. I learned so much about how things work without feeling drowned by all the the details.

In the end, I came out of this albeit fictional book with a much clearer understanding of how the British House of Commons operates. I found that the way Calder approached this in the book highlights how the she can lead the reader along the way to a destination they weren’t quite sure of at the onset without it being super obvious they’re being led.

Toby and Harry: The Unlikely Pair

I was afraid I wasn’t going to believe in Toby and Harry’s romance because the title of the book is spot on. They are the definition of an unlikely pair. Would people that different politically be able to even be friends, let alone romantically involved? The only clue that their chemistry was off the charts is that maybe they enjoy their bantering across the room in the House of Commons a little too much.

However unlikely, their development from political adversaries starkly opposed to one another, to begrudging acceptance that they are in this situation together, to literally helping one another survive to heated lovers was realistic. I believed in their journey. They maintained their political bantering the whole novel through which I definitely think would persist in a relationship where vastly differing political views are at play. They might have started as The Unlikely Pair, but by the end I was wanting to yell at them that they simply cannot be without one another!

British Politics Seem Tamer

I appreciated the insight into how British politics don’t seem quite as vitriolic as American politics so that Harry and Toby’s sort of union could actually be realistic. By contrast, in America if someone were anywhere right on the spectrum, especially as right wing as it’s gotten here, there’s no way someone liberal could palate having a relationship with them.

Being insulted and called names and accused of being too woke and ruining the fabric of a nation does not inspire romance. The fact that they could maintain decorum and have a debate without devolving into screaming at one another was refreshing. This might be more a commentary about how bleak the political arena is in the US though. Even though I keep circling back to politics, this book maintains a nice balance throughout that doesn’t make it fall too heavily on the politics side. It’s a romance, through and through.

The Romance

And speaking of the romance, the romance is sweet, innocent in many ways. Harry, having seemingly denied himself the freedom to explore this side of himself for so long, seems ardent and shy and in awe of the feelings he’s experiencing. And Toby is there for it! The way they work together and struggle to stay safe in the wilds with unknown assailants hunting them really makes the reader invested in both their survival and their budding romance.

Toby and Harry remark at one point that out in the wilderness all the façades of life are stripped away. Life becomes much simpler than the complexities of politics when things get down to the brass tacks of survival. They have to work together. And if they don’t, one or both of them might not survive. It makes it that much easier to fall into deep emotions with one another. It’s not about Harry, conservative leader and Toby, liberal MP. It’s about them as people getting each other through their ordeal alive and in tact.

Once the feelings are there, the spice is hot. It’s all encompassing love even if the couple themselves want to deny what it is for a long while.

The spicier side of me wishes there were more intimate scenes where it didn’t fade to black as it were. Because as Harry and Toby often said, they seemed to communicate best while having sex so I wanted to see more of that.

The Mystery

The great mystery of what is going on with the scary black helicoptered, machine gun toting bad guys is not solved in The Unlikely Pair. A large part of me wishes the reader got more insight into what was happening, if I’m being honest. I imagine the mystery will be resolved in the next book. It will be gratifying to finally see how the mystery will eventually resolve and to know what is happening in the larger picture. A multi-book story arc appeals to me, but part of me really wanted to get more of an idea about who dun it in this book.

The threat was so menacing when Harry and Toby were out in the wilderness. Evil seemed to always be right out of sight, and I feared for their lives a few times. Harry and Toby were incredibly vulnerable out there, the men hunting them so inhumane, so callous. The momentum building was great and then it seemed to just disappear from the plot of the story.

The mystery reappeared briefly once they were rescued. There was a bit more development into the masterminds behind the plot going on then. But the overall mystery was not focused on in the back end of the novel, in which political jockeying and pining romance took a front seat.

Length

At the beginning I was afraid that The Unlikely Pair was going to drag and be really long to read because it has quite a number of chapters. But I read it quickly because I got invested in the characters and sped through the bulk of the novel without realizing it.

Series is worth a read

I haven’t read the previous book in the series The Unlikely Heir, but I do know that those characters show up in this installment a lot, Oliver former Prime Minister and Prince Callum. I will definitely be reading that book as well. The next book will not come out until next year 2025 so please be patient (I am mostly talking to myself here) because it will be worth the wait!

Overall The Unlikely Pair is a great read, and I highly recommend it!

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

View all my reviews on Goodreads. Read more of my MM Romance Book Reviews here on my blog.

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Highly Recommend the Whole Series

First off let me just say I love the Interspecies Alliances series in which this book is an installment. Every story is heartfelt and sweet and spicy. This installment, The Alien Scientist, is no exception to this overall trend. I loved this story so much. If you’ve been reading the Interspecies Alliances series this installment will not disappoint. It might be my favorite of the series.

I should not have to warn that this review will be rife with spoilers but here is my blanket warning. Don’t read more if you haven’t read the book yet or do not want major spoilers. You can stop here by reading once more that I highly recommend this story because it’s very good and critical to the series as we get more into the overarching plot of the series. Go read it as soon as it’s out!

Spoilers Below!

You have been sufficiently warned.

The STORY

I enjoyed the continuing development of the overarching story: The known sectors of space have been infiltrated by a mysterious race of aliens that resemble Insects and the three main dominant species are trying to deal with their encroachment. The first few books saw these Insects and full-on villains but it came out in (maybe, my memory is bad) the last story that they are just looking for a home of their own. And in this story, we have our MC, THE alien scientist Sazahk, who is completely driven by his curiosity and scientific zeal to both understand this race of intelligent aliens better and determine if there is a way for them to inhabit an area on a planet that had previously been decimated by a biological weapon of mass destruction that killed everything in the area.

The Qesh

I have long been intrigued by Sazahk’s race, the Qesh. Their ability to intimately sync with computers through their neural implants, and the fascinating way that they display emotions through various colors displayed on their face and body, they are just fascinating to me. They are an advanced race and extremely scientific and rational. Being tall and slender with long hair, coupled with their mental acuity, they remind me a bit like a cross between elves of fantasy lore and Vulcans. This may just be my own personal imagining of what the Qesh are like as a race. I have enjoyed the Qesh characters in each book so much.

The Alien Scientist: Sazahk

Sazahk, our alien scientist, is no exception, we met him in previous books and his character is even more rational, science science-driven than most Qesh. He’s quick, completely straightforward and rational, and science is his primary drive and interest, sometimes to the detriment of his own health and safety. He’s also the brother of the prominent emissary who has been a recurring character throughout the series, and if you’ve read his story, a sort of prequel to the entire series, you know that he can do special things with his neural implant and his ship that has foreshadowed events that happen in this book.

Sometimes Sazahk reminds me of Bones from the TV show in his completely blunt, no emotions just statement-of-fact way of speaking. As a neurodivergent person, his perspective and personality really appealed to me.

Sazahk is what we might call demisexual on Earth. I enjoyed that aspect of his character so much. While it does make sense that the specific term demisexual wasn’t used since this is a futuristic sci-fi story, I feel like there could have been a bit more about Sazahk coming to realize what his sexual identity means.

His not wanting all that before was perfectly normal. But his wanting that with Garin when he never has before makes it that much more special. Garin is special because he broke through all the barriers to be the one for Sazahk. I feel like Sazahk realizing his sexual and romantic attraction to Garin could have been explored more.

Sazahk states several times that he has no emotional attachment to sex, and hasn’t ever wanted a romantic relationship. Exploring his feelings and experiencing him coming to the realization that he in fact does want that with Garin could have been examined in a bit more depth to really flesh out his thoughts.

The Alien Scientist’s Bodyguard: Garin

I loved Garin’s character a lot. He was the most gentle bodyguard ever, and loyal loyal loyal. I really loved him. Right away he is struck by how pretty Sazahk is but he’s often driven to annoyance by his frequent dashes off into danger to find a sample. He is tasked with keeping the alien scientist safe, and that proves to be quite the challenge.

We’ve seen Garin several times through the series, he’s the one who drops off Oliver Turner in the first book setting the whole series in motion. But in this book, we finally get to know him as a character and discover his motivations. While on the surface he is a soldier, a good one at that, we learn that there’s a squishy center that motivates him and to me, makes him immediately a green flag.

The SPICE

The spice in this book really hit for me for several reasons. Partly because the ramp-up to feelings was perfect and the feelings of the main characters moved well from annoyance to ‘oh but he’s so pretty and maybe I like that’ to full-on woah momma smut. And then secondly, the author seemed to have direct access to the part of my brain that houses the master list of all things that really freaking take me there and was busy checking things off that list in glorious fashion.

Things I loved very much in the Alien Scientist:

• Enemies to lovers is my favorite thing ever. In this case, they were definitely not super enemies at first, but the trope works well all the same. Mostly Garin didn’t want to be diverted from his duties guarding Dominic Turner to galavant off into the Dead Zone with Sazahk but oh no look at him he’s so pretty and fascinating maybe this isn’t so bad after all.
• Peril leads to physical closeness. Look this just really does it for me when one character sees the other in danger and it triggers something protective and emotional in them and causes them to examine the surprising desire they have for the other character. It. Just. Works.
• Also, there was only one bed sleeping bag. This trope also works so freaking well I don’t care if you think it’s overplayed. Awkward morning experiences, waking up tangled together because their sleeping bodies are drawn to one another. Just.. chef’s kiss.
• Two words: SEX. POLLEN. (In this case sex mycelium?). I don’t need to say anything more.
• Clinical ‘experiment’ sexual encounters with one person acting as the (not really) impassive facilitator while the other writhes in uncontrolled desire? Um, that’s high on that list of mine.
  Mysterious character motivations come into clarity. We’ve wondered about what’s driving Sazakh in previous stories and now we get to find out.
  More of Squad M because I love them.
• The return of the fleximetal tentacles thank you very much!
  

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How Do People Talk About Living in Atlanta?

People who live in Atlanta would never say “Atlanta” is where they live. Atlanta is an enormous city plagued by urban sprawl, so it now encompasses an area that was once hundreds if not thousands of disparate communities.

People within the broader city of Atlanta will be more likely to say the county they live in, like Cobb or Gwinnett. They might also give the smaller municipality where they actually live, like Chamblee or Decatur.

ITP/OTP

Another big distinction is ITP or OTP, Inside / Outside the Perimeter (I-285). Those who live ITP view going OTP as going into the vast wilderness. While people OTP see going ITP as going into the City like one would travel from Hoboken to Manhattan and say that they are going “to the City.”

The author at one point states something like ‘Dane lives in Atlanta just east of I-85’. Do they have any conception of just how broad a statement that is? The area that vague description encompasses that could still be said to be “in Atlanta” is very large.

Atlanta is Large

From a brief estimate, traveling from Suwannee to Fairburn is around 55 miles and would take over an hour with minimal traffic. Below is a quick Google Map screenshot.

So a statement like “just off 85 in Atlanta” could be talking about 85 South of Atlanta, like Riverdale, or College Park, or it could be within Atlanta, like Decatur, or it could be north of Atlanta, like in Lilburn or Buford. The huge disparity in those neighborhoods, and that’s just a few examples, cannot be overlooked.

In summary, Atlanta is HUGE. And I think that if choosing to write about an actual place, one should talk about that place in a realistic way and the way that people who live in that area actually talk. Maybe that’s being nitpicky. But it sort of broke the spell for me.

Beyond the Nitpicking

Beyond that, I didn’t find the characters themselves to be realistic, mature, or very likeable. I feel like that sort of breakup would be final, too, in the real world. I don’t see any coming back together. And maybe Dane felt that way too, because he all of a sudden couldn’t control his boners and thought about doing it with everyone. But hey, I don’t know… with the way he talked about his appendage in the 3rd person…

Gag.

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Vespertine by Leta Blake My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not My Usual

I usually stay far away from the second chance romance trope because I don’t care for it, and I distance myself even further from books that have anything to do with religion, so it was surprising that I decided to give this one a go, but the reviews were promising and when I read that a few other reviewers said that they were hesitant for similar reasons but liked this book, I gave it a try.

Worth it!

I am glad I decided to stick with Vespertine, because I ended up loving it. The story was a compelling, second chance romance with characters who were flawed and believable. I really felt the drama. Nicky and Jasper were a perfect pair, they just had to get through some things first to arrive at the place where they could both be the partner they needed to be.

Nicky

The pain I felt for Nicky as he struggled through the addiction that had him in its deadly grip was real, gut wrenching and visceral. I was terribly nervous for him at several moments through the book and was really rooting for him to stay strong and keep himself from relapsing.

Jasper

Jasper’s characterization was so fulfilling, to feel the struggle he was experiencing and the pull from so many different sides. I really felt bad for him because while I wanted him to do what he needed to do to be with Nicky, I got a good idea of how difficult that would be from the writing and the examination of his feelings. While I am not religious at all so for me to be able to empathize was remarkable, but I really did feel for him as he struggled to make difficult decisions.

This book is really worth the read, and I really loved this book.

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Note: Post backdated to when I finished the book.

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