Review: Lesserblood Lies by Ainsley Davidson

Title: Lesserblood Lies
Author: Ainsley Davidson
Genre: Science Fiction Romance
Heat Index: 3 out of 5
Release Date: Dec. 6, 2011
Word/Page Count: 81,000
Format: Netgalley

To protect her children from the despotic Trueblood, Merianne defied them by taking her girls and fleeing the planet. Even though Merianne's daughters are Lesserblood, they have the Talents. The Trueblood would train her children to use their dangerous gifts, but their methods are cruel, and Merianne would never see her girls again.

Merianne tries to give her girls a safe, quiet life, but when they befriend Thorne, a brilliant scientist, she finds herself drawn to the kind and captivating man—despite his uncanny resemblance to the Trueblood.

Thorne wants to help the girls control their emerging Talents, and he's intrigued by their mother. But just as Merianne finally accepts Thorne's help, two of her children are seized. To rescue the girls, Merianne and Thorne must risk death at the hands of the Trueblood, who will kill to protect their lies.

Merianne is trying to protect her children from tyrants looking to use their gifts to further galactic politics. Thorne is a gypsy-like scientist on the verge of paving uncharted territory. Their lives collide setting in motion changes that will affect a planet.

Don't pick up this book expecting a scifi romance or you'll be disappointed. This story is more a science fiction, coming of age, epic adventure, love story with some sex in it. Romance is all about the courtship of the main characters and this story is anything but. In fact, there are large portions where the two characters are nowhere near each other and, actually, having separate adventures.

This is a solid story that normally I would rate as a "C+", but I'm giving it a "B-" because of the rich, if truncated, promise of the universe. It does require a lot of patience, however. That's part of the problem. If you go into expecting a romance, this story drags and makes choices that the romance reader will likely have little patience to sit through.

The main characters are just not good romantic leads, though they turn out to be really interesting characters from a science fiction point of view. Merianne reminded me of the Eloi from the 1960 H.G. Wells movie, The Time Machine. At times, her naivete is borderline stupid and for a romance heroine that is a death knell, but for a science fiction standpoint, it makes sense. She is clearly not stupid, but her lack of worldliness is oftentimes infuriating. Thorne works a little better as a romantic lead, but some of his actions and behavior smacks of 'Me, Tarzan. You, Jane" while others show him as being rather socially inept and somewhat naive, himself.

Now as a scifi fan, I was disappointed by how truncated the story felt. There was so much that could have been explored: the Truebloods, the rebellion, the Talents, etc. The list is rather long actually and normally I would dock at least one or more grades for the lack of depth. Yet, this story is still really rich with creativity and potential and it just kinda grew on me. I wanted to know how things were going to turn out and I'm glad I stuck with it, even if the end got wrapped up a bit too neatly.

If you are looking for a scifi romance, this book is likely to end up in your DNF pile. However, if you are looking for something different, a grand, adventure filled love story (albeit truncated) with scifi elements and you're patient with some uneven storytelling, then I think you'll enjoy Lesserblood Lies.