Hello everyone! Today I'm super happy to take part on the blog tour for The Star Thief by Jamie Grey! Even more because today IS release day for The Star Thief!
I'm gonna be sharing my review and a tour wide giveaway, as well as having Jamie Grey over for an interview, but first things first, let me introduce you to the book and the author!
(The Star Thief Chronicles #1)
Publication Date: February 4th, 2014
Genres: New Adult, Science Fiction
Synopsis:
She might only be twenty-three, but Renna Carrizal is the most notorious thief in the galaxy. There’s just one problem – all she wants is to get the frak out of the business.
But when Renna rescues an injured boy from the warehouse she’s casing, she finds herself on the run from the mob instead of enjoying retirement on a garden world. Turns out, the kid was a plant to lead her to MYTH, a top-secret galactic protection agency.
MYTH needs Renna’s special skills, and they make her an offer she can’t refuse – unless she'd like to spend the rest of her life on a prison ship. To make sure she does her job they shackle her with a MYTH watchdog, the handsome but arrogant Captain Finn.
A former mercenary-turned-galactic-hero, Finn happens to have his own dirty secrets. Secrets that Renna wouldn’t mind uncovering for herself. Together, they discover an experiment to develop illegal cybernetics that will create an unstoppable army. The intended target? The human star fleet.
Now Renna must use her skills as the Star Thief to pull off the biggest job of her career – saving the galaxy. And herself.
Jamie Grey spent most of her childhood writing stories about princesses who saved the day and pretending to be a daring explorer. It wasn’t until much later that she realized she should combine the two. Now, as a tech-obsessed gamer geek, her novels mix amazing scientific developments, future worlds, and the remarkable characters that live in them.
Jamie lives in Michigan with her significant other and their pets, who luckily tolerate her overspending on tea, books, and video games.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
Interview with Jamie Grey
Today I'm so very honoured to have Jamie to answer a few questions about herself and The Star Thief!
When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Always? I remember writing down stories as a kid, making little books for my parents and illustrating them. Then about five years ago I stumbled on a critique site, joined and started getting feedback on my writing. I realized that maybe I could actually write things that people wanted to read. I’ve been hooked ever since!
What drew you to the sci-fi genre?
It’s funny, I actually started out writing fantasy. I loved those kinds of books as a kid - getting lost in different worlds, meeting new people. But then I started watching a few sci-fi TV shows a couple of years ago and realized the two genres were actually similar, just with different settings. Somehow when I started writing sci-fi everything just clicked, I felt comfortable and at home. It was surprising, but I’m just going with it for now
I have to say, I’m kind of a genre chameleon so I’m sure I’ll be trying out something new soon!What made you decide to publish as an indie-author?
I’ll be honest, it was a tough decision. I’d always thought that I’d be traditionally published, but with all the changes going on in the industry, and after some great feedback from agents, I decided the best thing for my career right now was to go indie. Everything is in so much flux that I wanted to see what happened before taking that leap. And honestly, I haven’t regretted it once! I’m actually mad at myself for not self publishing sooner. It’s so much fun to see a book from start to finish, to pick the cover and design the interior and make sure everything is just the way I want it. It’s perfect for my control-freak self! And the instant gratification is fantastic!
How did you decide to take the newly growing New Adult genre and go the science fiction route with it in this trilogy?
I actually started writing STAR THIEF several years ago. I’d originally planned for it to be adult, but when YA Sci-fi took off, I decided I’d rewrite it for that market. And then I promptly hated the book and gave up.
So last year when I saw that New Adult was starting to be a thing, I realized that’s what I’d been writing all along. As soon as I started rewriting the book, everything clicked. STAR THIEF had finally found it’s place! I loved the freedom that I had to make Renna who she really was - vulgar language and sex-obsessed and all. Something you can’t really do with YA. And the opportunity to explore the issues new adults face was so much fun. Even better, using a sci-fi genre allowed me to play with a lot of different things that hadn't really been done in the NA realm. I really loved creating this world and these characters!
How would you describe the plot for The Star Thief plot using science fiction shows/movies?
That’s tough. I think maybe you could call it Battlestar Gallactica meets Farscape, with a tiny bit of Alias and Firefly thrown in?
What other science fiction heroes or heroines from science fiction tv shows or movies would you use to describe Renna?
Oh fun. Love this question! Well, she’s very good at looking out for herself and loves to be girly, so she’s a bit like Inara from Firefly in that regard. She’s kick ass and tough like Kara Thrace/Starbuck in Battlestar Gallactica. And a total anti-hero with a heart of gold like Han Solo from Star Wars.
Thanks so much for having me on your blog, Pili!!! This has been so much fun!
Thank you so much for being here, Jamie! I knew that Renna felt a bit like Han Solo to me when I was reading!
My Review
When I heard that the next book by Jamie Grey, the author of one of my fave debuts this year Ultraviolet Catastrophe, was going to publish a Science Fiction New Adult trilogy I knew I needed to read it. And so when Jamie sent me an ARC for the first book, The Star Thief, I was thrilled! I am not a big fan of the current overload of New Adult books out there, but I guess it also has to do with the fact that most are romance & contemporary and those are not my fave genres.
That was confirmed when I started reading The Star Thief, from page one it is science fiction with a kick ass heroine that is on the wrong side of the law.
Renna has been a thief since she was a young girl taken in by a gang and now she's 23 and she's the best thief of the galaxy and she wants to retire. She takes one final job before her retirement but when she can't help but rescue a lil boy during her mission everything goes wrong. The whole job happened to be a set up to get her to rescue the boy and then be captured by MYTH, an intergalatic agency, that offer her her freedom in exchange for joining them for a very dangerous mission to save the galaxy.
The team Renna will join are quite distrustful of her, since they're the elite part of the law, and she's a very famour thief. And to add insult to injury, the captain of the team is someone she held dear and thought dead for a while and now that he is back between the living seems to hate her with a passion. Not the best way to embark yourself in a difficult mission.
Captain Finn/Hunter & Renna have a bad start to their relationship since he treats her essentially like trash and Renna doesn't take it lying down and there's a lot of resentment and misscomunication in there to wade through. They have to work together and at first none of them is pleased about that, though they end up respecting each other's abilities. And from then on the relationship builds up and they finally find themselves into high adrenaline situations that make them throw caution to the wind. I might have been a bit unsure of how good idea them hooking up on certain situations was, but what I liked even in that situation is that Renna was never passive about anything, she knew what she wanted and went for it, even if she had to be cornered to admit her feelings. Quite a welcome change having the female character being the one that has compromise & trust issues!
I loved Renna as a character, she was strong, resourceful, wouldn't back down or take shit from anyone and although she had spent all of her adult life putting herself first and not trusting anyone, she has a big kind streak hidden in her. One that she ends up listening to more than once and that makes her one hell of a hero to root for.
Despite all his issues with Renna at first, Finn never considered her less for being female or thought she'd need protecting and saving, and they end up making a fantastic team and that's a dynamic that I'd love to see more often!
The plot, well the plot was a gigantic ball of twists and turns that we get to untangle little by little, where there are lies and traitors that you wouldn't expect and there is much more at stake that you'd expect at first. I really wasn't expecting what the big secret facility would be about and some of the revelations at the end of the book were really unexpected. And despite some resolution at the end of the book we also find out that there's so much to uncover if Renna, Finn & their crew want to really complete their mission.
One thing I really loved about the way this book ended was that despite it being a cliffhanger, it's the kind of tolerable cliffhanger. The one where characters are the ones making the choices and knowing what they'll be facing instead of having things thrown at them unexpectedly! It still leaves you wanting to see how things will go and what will happen, but you are not left emotionally crippled and twitching!
The Star Thief is a book with a complex plot, a strong female character and a swoony love interest, where you get more than just sparks between them and that will leave you wanting more. Well deserved 4.5 stars!
The Giveaway
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