Under Strain by Cynthia Sax

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A damaged cyborg warrior is hunted by a peace-loving human female.
***
Strain is severely malfunctioning. The D Model cyborg was the sole survivor of a horrific decision made by his cruel manufacturers. He hates all humans and when he attacks one placed under his cyborg leader’s protection, he is reprimanded, stripped of his weapons, told to watch and not actively participate in the next mission.

That mission takes him to a small remote planet. Its lush terrain should only be inhabited by the cyborgs they were sent to rescue. Strain senses another presence on the surface. She is watching him, tracking him, hunting him.

A fully operational cyborg would end her lifespan.

Strain wants to capture, kiss, claim her.

Kamyelle is the only one left of her kind. Warriors have killed the other nonviolent human inhabitants of her planet. She survived…barely by hiding in the trees, observing her enemies, and covering herself with lifeform scan-concealing mud.

When a handsome, gray-skinned, brilliant blue-eyed male arrives, surrounded by weapon-carrying warriors, she knows she has to save him. Warriors harm and they kill. That is what they do.

She won’t allow them to hurt Strain.

Under Strain

Cute cyborg love story!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙🖤💜💖
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍
Character development: 😟🤭😤☺️

The heroine: Kamyelle – she is a human on a planet called Rohini 9. It is dangerous to be a human on that planet as warriors often come on spaceships and have killed all the rest of the humans that used to occupy the planet. There are also dangerous creatures in abundance which is why she lives in the trees and covers herself in a mud that conceals her from life form scans. There is a structure on the ground that contains a bunch of super-fast humanoid warriors. She is unable to open the door, but hasn’t allowed them to starve or dehydrate, feeding them daily through a tube at the top of the structure, even though they are warriors and might kill her if they get out.

The Hero: Strain – He is a D model cyborg who was once on a mission with over fifty two thousand of his warrior brethren for the Humanoid Alliance when the human commanders’ female helped to bomb and destroy every one of the cyborgs on the planet after their mission was complete, while Strain was trapped underground and could do nothing to save them. She laughed as she was doing it. He hates all humans, especially human females. He was rescued by other cyborgs after spending more than 8 years on the death planet.

The Story: Strain is broken, he has a never-ending video and audio that constantly replays in his system of the bombing and screaming deaths of all his fellow D models on the death planet, along with the laughing of the woman that killed them. Now he works on a cyborg team that rescues other cyborgs, and sometimes humans that are on their side. But when he saw a human female point a gun at a cyborg, he attacked her and now his leader, Cadet has told him he can’t carry a gun on their next mission, and he has to fix himself and pass their test to remain on the team.

I liked both characters from the start in this book, and I really liked the last book. Cyborg romance is recently a favorite of mine, so I was exited to find more of this series on my Libby app. Strain was cool because he was broken. He seems to have a form of cybernetic PTSD, he also has a huge fear of being stuck on any planet without means to escape. This is why he really wants to stay on the team that goes out on spaceships and rescues other cyborgs.

Kamyelle was also pretty fascinating since she outlived all her human counterparts on her planet and ended up being the lone human fending for herself. Her story was actually pretty similar to Strain’s, so they make a perfect couple. This book was quite steamy, there was a period of time when the two main characters are alone for days on end and they are intimate many times a day. Strain was so cute how he would just go on long runs in a big circle around Kamyelle when the voices got louder within him.

The one thing I didn’t like in this one was the fact that the cyborgs found out that their enemies, the Humanoid Alliance are up to no good. Though it sets up some conflict in the rest of the series, I like to think the cyborgs that escaped the Alliance are safe, but they might not be after what they found in this book.

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