Dustwalker by Tiffany Roberts

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A SYNTH SEARCHING FOR PURPOSE…

Walk. Scavenge. Destroy. Trade. A simple cycle that’s suited Ronin for one hundred and eighty-five years. With no clear grasp of his programming, the barren wasteland known as The Dust offers him purpose, a place where his armored undercasing, amped-up processors, and advanced optics can be put to use. The ramshackle towns on the edges of the waste serve merely as resupply stations between increasingly long treks. But one night — one human woman — makes him question everything.

A WOMAN WHO BRINGS HIM TO LIFE…

Lara Brooks struggles to survive under the strict rules imposed by the bots in Cheyenne. With her sister missing, she’s been on her own for weeks, and fears the worst. Her only hope comes from Ronin, a bot she catches spying on her. He promises to provide for Lara and search for her sister. All she has to do is dance. It should be easy; she’s done it before. But the longer she spends with Ronin, the harder it is to see him as just another bot.

A SANCTUARY HIDING DARK SECRETS…

In a city where humans are relegated to live in squalor, Ronin discovers a threat greater than any in the Dust — Warlord, Cheyenne’s tyrannical leader. When Ronin ignores the rules, he unwittingly puts Lara in danger. Warlord is as intolerant of disrespect as he is of mankind.

Dustwalker

Different but good!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙❤️💜💚
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌏🌍
Character development: 😊😘😟🥰
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Lara – she lives in Cheyenne alone since her sister Tabitha disappeared months ago. She is deathly afraid of the bots that work for the leader Warlord and live in the center of the city. She scavenges outside the city to find old metal and plastic to sell for food money. Though the family that has been helping her by selling her finds at market can no longer help her, so she is now truly on her own.

The Hero: Ronin – he is a synth (cyborg) and a dustwalker. Outside Cheyenne, the dust has taken over everything and destroyed so much. Everything is sandblasted and desolate, though as a dustwalker, he can travel from town to town and farther out than many humans to scavenge places most don’t get to, so he often returns with more goods than others.

The Story: It has been 185 years since the blackout and most of the old world has been destroyed and forgotten. Warlord and his bots reign supreme in Cheyenne and have strict rules to be followed by all. Ronin comes into town and is walking through the outskirts in the shantytown where humans lived, when he sees Lara dancing inside her meager dwelling. He is entranced by her, though when she sees him watching her, she is scared because she sees him as a bot.

I like that Lara overcomes her fear and gets to know Ronin until she sees him as more of a person. The romance between them is slow burn, but I really liked the progression and how they vow to protect each other. They eventually decide to leave Cheyenne together but have obstacles along the way. This is a very different story than any I have read before, but it kept my attention, and I did really like the characters.

This audiobook was done in dual points of view via dual narration. It was narrated by Hollie Jackson and Ryan Turner. Hollie Jackson is a very good narrator and though she sounds a bit too old for Lara, I am used to her narration from other books and like her as a narrator. Ryan Turner doesn’t have as deep as a voice as I would like, but he does a good job.

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