Risdaverse Tales by Ruby Dixon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Four Risdaverse Tales

The Alien’s Mail Order Bride

Ex-soldier Emvor doesn’t mind the quiet of his chosen life as a farmer. He doesn’t even mind that most nights are lonely on remote Cassa, but he does need help around his farm. A mail- order bride from his homeworld seems like the perfect solution. Unfortunately, the person that arrives is Nicola.

When She’s Married

Escaped convict Vordigar has two choices – he can be shipped back to the Haven prison system, or he can marry one of the locals. Vordigar’s not interested in forever. Or marrying. But one night in Piper’s bed changes everything.

Pretty Human

Varrik va’Rin is the lord of an ancient noble house and used to getting what he wants. So when he sees the strange, delicate human known as Milly, he decides he wants her. And he’ll do anything to have her, reputation be damned.

When She’s Bold

Lucy doesn’t really need a husband. She just wants one. Rektar is patient, and gentle for all his hulking form. He’d be a great husband. He’s also completely clueless that she’s flirting with him, so it’s time to be a little more…obvious.

Risdaverse Tales

Cute intro to the Risdaverse!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Romance: 💚🖤💙❤️
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🪐🪐🪐🪐
Character development: 🤖😚👽🥰

The heroine: Nicola – a human woman who is running away from aliens that see humans as animals or sex workers, she cons her way into the mail order bride program and ends up with a seven foot tall grouchy blue alien.

The Hero(es): Emvor – a scarred Mesakkah alien and former soldier moved out to Cassa and became a farmer because he wants peace and quiet. He doesn’t like associating with others, and especially doesn’t like talking about the past. He doesn’t want an emotional connection, but wants a female to warm his bed and help on the farm so he orders a Mesakkah bride.

The Story: Emvor expects a tall, blue, homely wife from his home planet from whom her only wants the barest amount of affection. Instead he gets a tiny, fragile human who is afraid of just about everything and needs protecting.

This was a novella, so I don’t want to give away too much about the story. Though I did enjoy it. I liked Emvor as the battle hardened gruff alien. This book was told in dual points of view and narrated by Mason Lloyd and Jillian Macy in dual narration. I like both of these narrators and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Scarred escaped convict meets human farmer girl!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Romance: 💙💚🖤💜❤️
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙📔
World building: 🌎🌍🌏🌎
Character development: 🤨👽🙄👽🥰

The heroine: Piper – she does what she has to do to survive. She is a human woman alone on an alien planet. She is desperate to save her farm and to do so, she needs a man from the jail to help her with what she needs.

The Hero: Vordigar – an escaped convict, hiding out from bounty hunters on Risda III, he is balled to jail by the local authorities. He is forced to share his cell with some farm animals and soon to be sent to an off world prison. He is offered the chance to stay on Risda III due to a marriage law, but he refuses after finding out his ‘bride’ was to be human.

The Story: Piper plays the dumb, naïve human in order to bribe the authorities by purchasing Vordigar as a slave. Though she immediately tells Vordigar of her plans in order to convince him to stay with her. She knows he is plotting escape and hopes to get what she needs from him before he does.

Jillian Macie and Mason Lloyd did the narration on this one, like the rest of the Risdaverse series. They are very good and their voices work well for this type of book. Though I must say I like duet narration much better than dual narration because I hate women doing men’s voices and vice versa. I like it best when the male narrator does all the male voices and the female does all the female voices. However, I will listen to the audiobook as long as there are two narrators. I rarely listen to books with only one.

I liked the story in this one a lot better than The Mail Order Bride. I liked that Piper is a strong woman doing her best to survive after her friend was killed. One thing I disliked about this book and The Mail Order Bride was that both the male characters have badly scarred faces. I don’t know why author’s do that. Why have a scarred or ugly (as both male characters described themselves). When you could write a gorgeously handsome man. I mean he can have scars on the body if you want a scarred character, but why mar their pretty faces?

The nobleman and the slave!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Romance: 💙💚🖤💜❤️
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙📔
World building: 🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐
Character development: 🤖🙄👽🤤👾

The heroine: Milly – she was abducted and bought by a wealthy woman and brought to the Mesakkah home world in order to be the woman’s gift to a wealthy and cruel alien.

The Hero: Varrik va’Rin – he is a Lord and head of house va’rin, a VIP on his planet Kes, and one of the biggest players in society. He is used to getting his way and when he sees Milly, he wants her. He attends a month long party at another of the important houses.

The Story: Lady Draneeran is hosting the party and Varrik assumes she will end up proposing a marriage alliance between their two houses. He plans to entertain the offer in order to keep the wealth and standing his name garners. He is wealthy and stuffy, the kind of alien that won’t allow others to use his name because he is the highest ranking noble at the party.

This was a very short novella, though this is the one in the series I wanted to read most after reading the blurb, I didn’t really like how stiff and snobbish Varrik was. Though I liked the fact that he treated Milly like a valuable person from the start even though she is a human, who his kind thinks of as nothing more than a slave or an animal.

Adorkably Hesitant Hero!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Romance: 💙💚🖤💜❤️
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙📔
World building: 🪐🪐🪐🪐🪐
Character development: 🤖🙄👽🤤👾

The heroine: Lucy – a curvy girl on an alien world. Lucy loves to cook and has a crush on a Massakah male named Rektar. She loves to cook and brings him food every day.

The Hero: Rektar – a massive blue straight-laced military alien. He works on Risda’s Port Authority. Rektar has some issues from his past and doesn’t think he can get a woman, especially one as pretty as Lucy. He is awkward, and endearing and has no clue she has been flirting with him. He has a crush on her but thinks she is just lonely and wants company.

The Story: Most of the people on Risda are unfriendly, especially towards the Mesakkah since Mesakkah law is so strict and the people don’t look to kindly on the people that enforce the law in any way. Before arriving on Risda, Rektar and his co-worker went through all sorts of training on how to deal with humans and other aliens who were abducted from Earth and spent time as captives or slaves. So he enacts a lot of the training tips he learned. Things like not getting too close or looming over them.

I liked this one from the start. Rektar was in the military since he was young and never spent much time around females so his reactions to Lucy were so delightful. Lucy thinks Rektar is a clueless flirt. The story was cute from the start.

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