Zai by Starla Night

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I will destroy all threats to the empire with unrelenting force. Even if that threat comes in the form of a weak, fragile lesser with night-black hair and beguiling eyes.

The blades. Elite forces of the empire, nightmare to all servant-world residents just trying to scrape by. Of course I have to flee when my medical ship comes under attack.

But my escape pod is captured by their ruthless leader.

His face is hidden in an assassin’s cowl. Metal sai weapons are fused to his wristbones. He can fly between spaceships like an owl and execute enemies through a hull.

Yet according to him, I’m the dangerous one.

His people’s lust metal has gotten in my blood. They’ll tear each other apart trying to get to me. And then? Because they can’t understand their feelings, they’ll tear me apart, too.

So he’s taking me to the Arsenal, a massive station teeming with his blades, where I’m one papercut away from unleashing hyperviolent zombie hordes.

Well, okay.

I’m lucky he’s the one who captured me. He senses the lust metal inside me, he understands the desires burning us both with unrelenting need, and he’s completely unaffected.

Or, well, mostly…

*** Contains unique alien shifters, fierce passion, and loyal warriors who find their fated mates in the stars. Each full-length book is a complete romance with an epic happily-ever-after. Claim your conqueror today!

Zai

Zai and Esme’s Story Raised the Stakes

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙💛💚❤️
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Chemistry: 🧪🧪🧪🧪🧪
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙📔
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍
Character development: 😋😀🤯😎😍
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration type: Dual Narration

Main Characters and Plot Overview

After everything that happened in Sithe, I was eager to see where the series would go next, and Zai did a great job expanding both the world and the larger conspiracy. Zai is the General Master of the Blades, a disciplined warrior who believes emotions are a weakness and sees humans as lesser beings. Esme is one of the women infected with Arrisan lusteal after accepting what she believed would be treatment for her mysterious condition. Her trip goes horribly wrong when the medical transport is attacked, leaving her escape pod drifting through space until Zai recovers it.

One of my favorite early moments is when Esme wakes to find Zai in serious physical distress and instinctively helps him despite having every reason to fear him. That scene immediately shifts the balance between them. I also liked how Esme’s nursing background actually mattered throughout the story instead of simply being mentioned once. As they return to the Arsenal, the plot becomes much bigger than a romance. Esme and Catarine gradually uncover clues about the Vanadisans weaponizing lusteal infected humans, while Esme’s questions also lead Zai to realize that someone within his own ranks has been poisoning him for years. Watching those pieces come together during the increasingly chaotic graduation sequence kept me completely invested.

Highlights and Limitations

What stood out most to me was how much quieter this romance felt compared to the constant action surrounding it. Zai does not suddenly become soft. Instead, he slowly learns how to care for Esme through awkward gestures, protective instincts, and his repeated requests for her to “tell him the things.” Those moments made him surprisingly endearing because they showed someone trying to understand feelings his culture never taught him to recognize.

Esme was equally satisfying because she grows in confidence over the course of the story. Early on, she believes she is unwanted after being rejected by her family but seeing her become someone Zai genuinely depends on emotionally and strategically gave her a meaningful arc. I especially enjoyed the scenes where her observations expose problems that everyone else had overlooked simply because they accepted the Arsenal’s traditions without question.

I did wish some of the military hierarchy had been explained a little more clearly. There were points where I had to stop and sort out who answered to whom before I could fully appreciate the political maneuvering. It never ruined the experience, but it occasionally slowed the pacing for me.

Another thing that bothers me, though it is a big part of this world, is the way that Arrisans see humans as “Lessers” which literally means lesser than them. The scientists are surprised that humans can even speak and said that after thoroughly studying the humans that they don’t think humans can feel pain, so they have no moral problems with cutting into them for their experiments, taking out parts of their brains, or stuffing them into a suitcase that is biologically secure. The Arrisan’s also went so far as to move Earth, which they renamed Humana, out of its orbit to make it better able to do the farming they want in order to produce their food. They didn’t care about the fact that changing the orbit caused catastrophic storms, hurricanes and floods that killed millions of humans.

I am also not a huge fan of the fact that Zai, though he is a leader, still has to answer to the High Command and the Emperor. After spending time with Esme, Zai stops thinking of her as a Lesser and starts valuing her ideas and intelligence, but the High Command and the Emperor still think of Lessors as basically animals. They see the ones that are infected with lusteal as some sort of weapon and have no feelings at all about dissecting them to find out what makes the lusteal infect them and how it all works.

Narration

The audiobook cast fit these characters remarkably well. Rose Dioro gives Esme a gentle warmth that reflects both her compassion and her growing confidence. Connor Crais has a deep, sexy voice and delivers Zai with the controlled, almost emotionless precision that fits an elite Blade, yet he gradually lets small hints of vulnerability slip through as Zai changes. Those subtle shifts made several emotional scenes land even harder.

J.F. Harding’s appearance is brief, but it serves as an effective introduction for what’s coming next in the series and left me looking forward to the following book. I really enjoy the fact that each book in this series is narrated by different people. I got the collection, so the entire series in one audiobook that is nearly 70 hours long. I would get too bored listening to the same two narrators for every book. But as is, I am wishing there would be another spin off or related series to get afterwards.

Final Thoughts

I ended up enjoying Zai even more than I expected because it balanced romance with genuine mystery and political intrigue. The relationship works because both characters actively make each other stronger. Esme helps uncover a conspiracy that threatens the empire while giving Zai someone he can finally trust, and Zai gives Esme a sense of purpose after she spent so long believing she had lost everything.

The world building and character development is great, and I love that this series is more story than smut, though there are still some great spicy scenes. I am a big fan of the Arrisan words they use for things, especially the way they say jack and socket for some intimate body parts. While many alien romance books use similar words for things like a version of our curse word that also mean getting busy, but these are original to this series, and it made me laugh.

The final stretch delivers several revelations in rapid succession, from the discovery of the poisoning to the escalating threat of weaponized lusteal, and it left me excited to continue the series. If you enjoy science fiction romance with layered world building, capable heroines, and emotionally reserved heroes who slowly learn how to love, this audiobook is absolutely worth picking up.

Blog|Goodreads|Facebook|Instagram|Pinterest|BookBub



View all my reviews