Book Review: Wanderlust by Anne Aguirre

Synopsis:

Sirantha Jax doesn’t take chances… she jumps at them…

Sirantha Jax is a “Jumper,” a woman who possesses the unique genetic makeup needed to navigate faster than light ships through grimspace. Jax has worked for the Farwan Corporation her entire career. But now the word’s out that the Corp deliberately crashed a passenger ship, and their stranglehold on intergalactic commerce has crumbled—which means that Jax is out of a job.

She’s also broke, due to being declared dead a little prematurely. So when the government asks her to head up a vital diplomatic mission, Jax takes it. Her mandate: journey to the planet Ithiss-Tor and convince them to join the Conglomerate.

But Jax’s payday is light years away. First, she’ll have to contend with Syndicate criminals, a stormy relationship with her pilot, man-eating aliens, and her own grimspace-weakened body. She’ll be lucky just to make it to Ithiss-Tor alive…

5 Rambles on Wanderlust (Sirantha Jax #2) by Anne Aguirre

1. Jax is deteriorating. She’s sick. Likely dying. This creates an interesting conflict for her character, as she hates that she is swiftly becoming fairly useless in any dangerous/intense situations. We get more fear, more desperation, more learning to rely on others from her, which is an interesting character change from the first book. Not only that, but she’s supposedly working as an ambassador now, which, as we all know, can’t be a good job for Jax. All while living with the effects of not jumping.
2. Velith is a main character. Vel appeared in the first book fairly briefly, as a bounty hunter who ends up saving saving Jax’s life after he is tasked with kidnapping her. But in Wanderlust, he becomes Jax’s trusted ally, and an extremely helpful one at that. Not to mention that his misunderstanding of certain human phrases and idioms is a nice addition of humor. Vel being a bug also adds an interesting level of conflict, since Vel hides behind human skin most of the time, keeping his real identity a secret (aside from Jax, of course, who knows who Vel really is).
3. Jax and March are wonderful. They have issues. The grow together. Then they’re torn apart. It isn’t a walk in the park, and I’m so excited to see where their relationship goes in the next book. This is no easy romance, and I’m practically foaming at the mouth to get more of them.
4. We get some insight into both Jax and March’s past. We meet Jax’s mother (what a peach), and we meet people from March’s past. We’ve started moving beyond the “Oh no Kai is dead and he’s the only thing in my past” conflict to a more well-rounded character in Jax. One thing that I love about this kind of series is the constant addition of bread crumbs that build up to a fully realized character. We got more bread crumbs in Wanderlust, and I’m expecting even more in Doubleblind (#3).
5. The old crew is still kicking (Doc, Dina) along with some new faces (Hit, Jael) and they are kicking major ass, Firefly style. I love this type of book, where it really is sort of Western meets Sci-Fi. One minute you’re fighting a battle in underground tunnels, the next you’re flying through space, ridding a space station of horrifying alien monsters.

If you’re a fan of sci-fi, you should most definitely get your hands on the Sirantha Jax series. It’s great fun, with lots of action, romance, alien monsters, and space madness.

Content: 18+ for language, sex, violence.