Donna S. Frelick | Kay Hudson

Donna Frelick’s Fools Rush In

Fools Rush In is the third installment in Donna Frelick’s Interstellar Rescue series (after Unchained Memory and Trouble in Mind), but it is easily read as a stand-alone novel. In fact it is really a prequel to the other books, introducing Rayna Carver, agent of the Interstellar Rescue Service and Sam Murphy, a space pirate with a passion for liberating slaver ships (supporting characters in the earlier books). Gabriel Cruz, Sam’s friend and the hero of Trouble In Mind also appears in Fools Rush In.

fools-rush-in Frelick’s universe is based on the presumption that the Gray aliens (Minertsans) are indeed abducting humans (as well as members of many other species) to work as slaves in their mines and factories. Fools Rush In opens as Murphy’s pirate vessel, the ShadowHawk, captures a Minertsan slave ship, the Fleeflek, on which Rayna is undercover, hoping to make her way into the munitions factory on the planet LinHo, one of the acknowledged pest holes of the galaxy. Her plans disrupted but not put aside, Rayna sets out to convince this inconvenient pirate to help her continue her mission. Sparks fly, both professional and personal.

Unlike Trouble In Mind, which is set largely on Earth, Fools Rush In takes place on starships and occasional dingy and dangerous ports. Frelick’s books are science fiction romance for the science fiction lover. The romance, while satisfying, never overshadows the action plot, which involves sabotage, space battles, and general skulduggery. Frelick does not go out of her way to over explain her universe, either. We meet Thranes, Patarons, Minertsans, and other aliens, with just enough description to make them interesting, but never bogging down in back story. We learn just enough about Rayna and Sam’s earlier live to understand their reasons for fighting the slavers.

Frelick’s Interstellar Rescue series is set in a grim reality, and there is considerable graphic violence (and some graphic sex), suitable for the tone of the novel. If you enjoy science fiction with a layer of space opera and a believable love story, start the series with Fools Rush In.

Donna Frelick: Trouble In Mind

What if aliens really were abducting humans, for slave labor and sometimes for their psychic powers? That’s the premise behind Donna S. Frelick’s Interstellar Rescue series.

trouble-in-mind Trouble In Mind (the second book in the series, but definitely readable as a stand alone—I haven’t read the first one yet) begins as a suspense novel, with FBI Agent Alana Matheson called in on what seems like a routine kidnapping case. A woman and her son have been snatched from a remote location, leaving her husband beaten but alive—and now a suspect.

But Lana’s investigation soon takes an unexpected turn as private investigator Gabriel Cruz shows up, brought into the case by the angry husband and his friends. Lana is having enough trouble with her FBI partner—she doesn’t need more from interfering civilians.

Gabriel is not just another private eye, and the kidnap victims have a background he can’t explain to Lana, not without telling her about psychic powers, galactic conspiracy, and his own extremely dysfunctional and not entirely human family.

Trouble In Mind moves smoothly from Earth-bound suspense to interstellar intrigue, from Lana and Gabriel to the kidnapped woman to the aliens pursuing her and the masterminds behind it all, as Lana and Gabriel race to rescue the victims and Lana gradually learns that there is far more involved than she ever imagined, even in her own background.

This is an exciting, well-written example of the science fiction romance genre, but be advised that it contains some very graphic language, sex, and violence, all intrinsic to the story and characters. All the same, I’m hooked. I’ve downloaded the first book in the series, Unchained Memory, and pre-ordered the third, Fools Rush In.

Kay Hudson

Donna Frelick’s Fools Rush In

Donna Frelick: Trouble In Mind

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