Hello, and welcome back! While the temps have cooled down here, it's as muggy as mid-summer, making it very unpleasant to be outside. I'm hoping the quick rainstorm that's just popped up will do away with some of the stickiness in the air. And it's a very good thing I'm ahead in my reading, because it's been a long, sad, and busy week here, so not much reading is happening.

This time out, I have the latest in Cheryl Brooks's Cat Star Chronicles, Outcast (Sourcebooks). Lynx, like the other males from his planet Zetith, was sold into slavery when their planet was destroyed. At the time, he was young, so being put in a place where he was expected to serve other slaves sexually wasn't such a hardship. At first. Eventually, the novelty wore off, and Lynx could no longer perform his duties, so he was sold to someone else. His dislike of women followed him from then till the present, where he's found his way to Terra Minor. Instead of having his own place as he'd planned for so long, he's got to find a job, and he finds himself working for a woman as there is nowhere else to go, and it appears that woman needs all the help she can get, as she's being attacked by one of the creatures she raises when he arrives. Bonnie needs help with her home and farm, and, while she knows a man is the logical choice, she wants no more to do with men than Lynx wants to do with women. After all, her last poor choice in men left her pregnant and alone on their homestead. Now that Lynx has come, though, maybe things won't be quite as difficult. Until Bonnie finds herself attracted to her silent, surly hired hand. Sure, he's cranky and stays as far away from her as he possibly can while making things run far more smoothly on the farm, but something about him makes her wonder how to breach his defenses. Compared to the previous tales in this series, this one is pretty tame for much of the story, as Lynx's affliction and his past keep him from even thinking along the lines of claiming a mate until very near the end of the book. It's a good story, but if you're hoping for several hundred pages of steam as you may have come to expect in the series, you're bound to be disappointed with that aspect. I liked this one, but still think the first in the series is the best. This one's earned three and a half of Cupid's five arrows.

Until next time, happy reading!