Gini Koch
ISBN #: 978-0756406325
Publisher Name: Penguin Publishing Group/Daw Books
Date Released: December 2010
Genre: Sci-Fi Romance
Book Format: Print

BACK COVER BLURB:

It's been five months since marketing manager Katherine "Kitty" Katt started working with the aliens from Alpha Centauri, and she and Jeff Martini are getting closer. But when an experimental spacecraft is mysteriously returned to the Kennedy Space Center, Kitty and the rest of her team are called in to investigate. Now the team must survive murderous attacks, remove a space entity from a group of astronauts, and avoid an unhinged woman with a serious crush on Kitty's high school boyfriend. And that's all before evil masterminds decide Kitty's extermination is vital.

COVER SNARK:
I actually really like the cover.

FIRST LINES:

"Are you sure she can do this, Captain Tucker?"

"Absolutely, Commander Martini." "Like lickin' butter off a knife."

"Jeff, I've done it already."

"Yeah, don't remind me."

FAVORITE LINES:

"I hope that's working like we wanted it to."

"It's a plan of yours, Kitty. I'm sure it's going to go haywire somewhere."

LYNETTE'S TWO CENTS:

Some books pull me in despite my reservations, not because I'm overwhelmed by the writing, but because the story and the voice of the author are so compelling. ALIEN TANGO is one of those novels. I read ALIEN TANGO thinking 'really, you gotta to be kidding me,' but I kept reading and kept being sucked in. It was an experience similiar to when I read J.K. Rowling and you thought if I read another adverb where Harry, Ron, Hermoine or any of the others did one more thing happily, sacredly, sadly etc., I was going to poke my eye out with a fork but I still found myself being blown away and loving the series. Or when I read the Twilight Saga and asked myself why am I reading about a heroine who is taking the woman's movent and moving it back to the sixteenth century, why? And why do I keep re-reading this? That is how I feel when I was reading ALIEN TANGO, I read if fully understanding that their were things that drove my crazy, but I loved the book despite those things.

ALIEN TANGO is the second novel in the Kitty Katt (yes, that is her real name and part of my issues with the novel) series. The first novel, Touched By Alien while engaging, didn't suck me in, but it was enough for me to want to read the second book. Although I think that was because I had already had this book when it was offered free from Amazon. Here's what drove me batty.

• The slapstick comedy routine. I mean come on. You're running for your life and this is how you're acting what you're thinking? Not only the slapstick when you're running for your life, but in all other instances. I mean really Kitty, really? Those moments didn't work for me personally. But I will admit that one scene where she's in the car and accidently turned on the On Star (sorry, I don't know the universal term, the dispatch help people that come with some car models) cracked me up. That was frigging hilarious. Everything else made me roll my eyes. I think the author would get better results if she kept to Kitty's character traits but toned down the slap stick in future releases.

• The obvious plot. I know I have a weird habit of usually guessing what's going to happen in a book, but ALIEN TANGO was way too obvious for me. The instant a hint appeared, I could tell what it was about and how it would manifest later. To me it was like hanging a sign over someone's head (umm, especially Chucky's from the first telephone call in the first couple pages) and saying, 'the killer is Colonel Mustard and he's in the conservatory with a candlestick.' Or was I the only one who caught all the plot clues? I know this is a habit of mine, but to me they seemed more obvious than usual.

• How convenient all the pieces falls into place for Kitty. She hardly has to work for anything (except kill a few monsters) her family relationships, old boyfriends, men all seem to fall quite easily into the spaces Kitty has mapped out from them with only a couple words. There is no real strong internal angst or conflict.

However, despite the issues that I had with ALIEN TANGO, it pulled me in. ALIEN TANGO has an unique premise, interesting romance, quirky characters that pulled me in and had me going back for more and more importantly wanting more.


WHERE PURCHASED:

It was a limited time free book. I downloaded ALIEN TANGO from Amazon and read as part of the Show Me The Free Book Challenge by The Unread Reader.


RATING: