Review: Spread the geek-love!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 5, 2012
A legendary pilot rescued from a fate as a slave when her ship was disabled by a mysterious device. An engineer from the aptly nicknamed 'NerdWorks' with the skill to aid her in her mission to destroy the device. Both with something to prove and a need to get revenge against the man behind the 8th Wing's greatest threat. But Celene Jur, with her stainless reputation, doesn't want a tech geek weighing her mission down and Nils Calder is the best man for the job. Sparks fly and not all of them good as the pair fight the sensual tension building between them and their mutual sense of duty.CHAIN REACTION flew by fast, even for a novella. I have a serious weakness for geek heroes and Nils is a smolderingly well-built example of the hawt-geek. He's almost too darned perfect. Handsome, intelligent and romantic. Blah, watch me melt into an oozy little puddle of reader goo. It's pathetic. Meanwhile, Celene is maddeningly B.A. in all the right ways. Is she a little too cool? Yep, she just pushes over the line between being awesome and too cool. Her redeeming quality is that being a legend has kind of made having a relationship impossible. Men are either intimidated by her or they want to hook-up with her for the status, finding a guy who likes her for her isn't easy until Nils comes along.The actual plot is a little shaky. It's dull during the traveling bits but when action happens it's pretty fun. Once they reach the villain it hits a bit of a hurdle. I felt like them getting to him was too easily resolved considering all the preparation but this is a romance so I shouldn't have expected the 'boss fight' to be the highlight of the story. The conclusion was well done, I didn't want the characters to not stay true to their 'duty first' personalities. Once they return from the mission the actual ending made me grin. It's a romance and I wanted the geek to get the girl so I loved it.While not without a few areas that didn't fully sell me I think the only big issue I had was that I had somehow not read COLLISION COURSE beforehand so I was confused at the beginning. I could have sworn I had read it already but I guess not. I think this can stand alone really but readers would benefir greatly from reading this second. Overall, I loved the sexy geeky spacey romance of CHAIN REACTION and can't wait to read more from Archer!**ARC received via NetGalley