Post-American Civil War "inspirational" romance novel set on a Plantation in 'Dixie' isn't a thing I'd normally read. But see, I have this friend who recommended Tavia Gilbert as an audiobook narrator and I wanted to read a stand-alone book before committing to an "impossible to keep up with the reading order" series.

You can thank Tavia Gilbert for the second star, because without her voice and narration I wouldn't have finished this book.

Olivia is a destitute widow of a traitor and Ridley is a traitor soldier for the North looking for a new start. He's determined to learn horse-mastery from a black man he met during the war and she's relying on nepotism for her new start. Of course nothing goes as planned, but I did like the parallels of Ridley learning to handle a skittish mare and gaining the animal's trust just as he had to earn Olivia's trust.

The thing is, the setting is inherently racist, but the story didn't have to be. Alexander could've shown just how ugly and difficult it was for everyone to adjust to the end of slavery, but instead she tiptoes around the issue. Sure there are overtly racist characters who are frowned upon but mostly tolerated and there's actual violence, but that too is sanitised.

The black characters, freed slaves, have returned willingly to work on the Belle Meade Plantation. Apparently all of them since no one is mentioned missing or departed. Suspending my disbelief on that and accepting that the loyal servants stayed for whatever unmentioned reasons, they seemingly have no life outside serving their white betters and worshipping in their church. All the delightful characters I wanted to know more about existed only to share their wisdom with the white protagonists on their way to enlightenment and God. And yet, somehow, Alexander finds a way to add depth and complexity to her secondary white characters...

Then there was the owner of Belle Meade Plantation, General Harding. A Confederate soldier who refused to cut his beard until the South won the war. Spoiler: His beard remains uncut at the end of the book. He continually idealises the South, but is never forced to admit that he wants to reinstitute slavery. He agrees to pay his black workers the same wage as their white counterparts when someone suggests it him but at the same time voices his opinion that the black race is only fit for manual labour. He respects Robert Green, his head hostler, a black man and former slave, but doesn't even think about promoting him to the position of a foreman.

And for all this he is venerated. Harding is respected by the main protagonists who both come to see black people as people instead of cattle to be auctioned. General Harding is so respected by the romantic hero of this book that Ridley Cooper cannot leave Harding's employ without revealing his secret about fighting for the North and against the South and in doing so Ridley risks losing the extra pay he earned for himself. No, Ridley chooses to let General Harding decide whether or not Ridley should keep the money.

The underlying theme in this book is getting the Belle Meade Plantation, and by extension the South, back on its financial legs. It's just a little difficult to see under all that inspirational frosting.

Skip the first part and its five chapters. That’s all you need to know about Hurley’s God’s War. Trust me.

Oh, you need more. I guess I could…

Imagine a futuristic world, a planet—not Earth, think Arrakis without the worms—where two countries are at a war with each other. And it’s a holy war that’s dragging all their neutral neighbours and people of the Kitab down with them.

Then imagine an alien coming down with an agenda of her own, a plan to win a bigger war at home—on Earth probably—a plan of genetic manipulation and extermination.

Are you picturing it?

That’s where the story starts. Nyx and her team are bounty hunters trying to scrape a living when the Queen unexpectedly sics them on to the alien. Rhys is Nyx’s middling magician, also Chenjan to her Nasheenian. Khos is the shapeshifter and Taite is the comms man. Anneke is… well, I don’t know exactly what she is but I’m hoping to find out.

They set out onto a bloody and dangerous trip to a warzone in search of a foreign woman. They win some and they lose some but mostly they lose. Things and body parts. Lives too. It’s called grimdark for a reason.

Which is funny, because the basic plot is that of a mystery whodunnit and there’s a strong thread of a slow burn romance between Nyx and Rhys carrying the story. They’re the perfect opposites. She’s strong and godless, he’s devout and sensitive. He’s black, she’s brown, and their countries are at war with each other. The one thing that they share is a deep denial, which only makes the understated longing that much better.

And the world building—well, that’s the reason why I asked you to skip the first part of the book. As wonderful as this world Hurley has created is, she also wrapped it into a huge infodump and glued it in front of a well written, perfectly flowing whole book. It’s like she added the prequel novella that usually comes out between books in front of the first book of the trilogy.

As much as I loved that first page, the following fifty pages or so were painful to slog through. That reading experience bogs down my rating, which is why I hope to spare you from it. It was so bad I was ready to give up on Hurley, and Nyx and Rhys are the only reason I’ll go on to the second book in the trilogy.

I should read more scifi, I think, but I never do. Why? Because whenever I'm reading scifi I feel like a failure as a physics student for not understanding it all. Which is why whenever I pick up a Jean Johnson novel I leave my scientific brain at the door.

I won't think too deeply about this, no I won't. Except that doesn't work either.

Hellfire is the third and the middle—I am told—book of Theirs Not to Reason Why-series. It felt a touch unfinished. I had some issues with the pacing and I guess that could be explained by the author extending the series with one book. The middle part was heavy on the battle sequences and somewhat jumpy with the date and scene changes. I liked the beginning where Ia once again visits her family on Sanctuary and the ending with a sliver of character development best.

Over and over I've said I'm a plot girl but—and here comes the caveat—not at the expense of the characters. There's very little on Ia's personal growth in any of the three books published so far. She has this huge task that's literally bigger than any one life, even hers, but she's holding it together and converting people into her way of thinking. There's hardly anything on how she copes with the pressure or a failure.

In An Officer's Duty Ia met Meyun Harper, her own blind spot, the one person whose future she can't see and she had to learn to work around that. In Hellfire there's a moment where Ia and her crew fail to fulfil one of her visions and the cost is great. She muddles along and finds a way to duck tape the frayed threads of time together. but the personal side of that failure and recovery is all but ignored. Instead, it's used as a way for Ia to solidify the trust and faith of her crew. She isn't shown to learn from her mistakes and plan for extra contingencies.

It could be said that the cost for any of her mistakes is too great, but compared to the extinction of the Milky Way? I really hope this is explored further, but I fear the author has moved on.

What ever happens, I hope the next book has more Meyun Harper in it.