Review: Hot Romance in Post-Apocalyptic Desert!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 25, 2012
Derek desperately needs a doctor to take home to his settlement to help a boy he's taken under his wing, the only place in this post-apocalyptic wasteland that he knows has a doctor in the army populated strong hold. But seeing Lidia again, he can't help his feelings return from ten years ago, she's still as gorgeous as she was then, still as kind... but more pigheaded. He'll do anything to get her to his settlement, and to keep her there.Lidia has been dreaming of Derek the past ten years,  the soldier she patched up with a new experimental weaponized arm, one that she has hoped has given him fair advantage against the looters and drifters running free reign on the desert. Seeing Derek again wreaks havoc on her heart, but she can't let him get the best of her - but there's not much a girl can do when kidnapped to take through perilous terrain, drifter infested deserts and into the darkness of the night with a man who makes his desire for her known.I enjoyed this! It was a short story that was all about love, but had yummy side dishes of a world collapsing and people living in settlements in the desert America had become. Ella Drake writes an excellent story with romance in a post-apocalyptic world, her writing is fast pace, adventurous and her characters very believable, Desert Blade was a joy to read!I liked the two part nature of the story, first you got to know Derek and Lidia, while she nursed him back to the books of the living after he nearly died trying to save his foster mother from looters. Lidia and her colleague fix him up with a weaponized prosthetic arm, with a wicked retractable blade. And then they get separated and don't meet until 10 years later...And boy when they do meet! Yes the society is all most completely collapsed, food is the hardest thing to come across and drifters rob you and kill you every chance you give them - but still it seem love's not dead. I love the strong emotions of possession Derek has for his Doc, he doesn't dance around or flirt or court, he damn right goes after what he wants. And that is definitely sexy!I loved the side Lidia brought to the story, her desire to help, heal and make the community she is in better. She's the kind doctor with a strong streak, but not a caricature of the profession, Drake has managed to create in Lidia a truly kind character, who can't help but respond to Derek's vulgar advances (which were hot, btw!) and give him her loyalty even if they haven't seen each other in ten years.