Hello, my lovely peepsš„!
Iām aching for the weekend and it feels so far away! I finally got to a very interesting point in Fire Emblem Engage except, now Iām too busy to have a moment to sit down and enjoy the gameā¦Sure, Iāve got time to play it, but I feel like I canāt fully immerse myself and truly have fun until itās the weekend when Iāve got a little more time.
For todayās post, I am sharing this weekās book review. This time around, Iām featuring Pirate Bounty: A Military Sci-Fi Series by Rick Partlow and Pacey Holden!

Title: Pirate Bounty: A Military Sci-Fi Series
Author: Rick Partlow and Pacey Holden
Genre: Fiction, Sci-Fi, Space-Opera, Action, Military Sci-Fi
Edition: Ebook > Kindle
Length: 360 Pages (Kindle)
Published: 29 Nov 2022
Publisher: Aethon Books
LINKS:
Amazon: [Link]
Goodreads: [Link]


Sometimes, it takes killing to make a living.
That fiancĆ©e? Sheās marriedāto another guy.
The family business? His parents sold it.
Jack Bennet returns from the war to find the life he left behind has moved on without him. The only option he has to make ends meet lies in a military surplus junkyard starship. Whatās a former Combat Search and Rescue soldier to do?
Fix up the ship, hire the cheapest pilotāa notorious drunkāand take the first contract that comes up: collect a bounty on one of the most ruthless killers in the Pirate Worlds, a place crawling with thieves, cutthroats and con artists whose primary language is violence. Jack must abandon his nice guy persona, or exploit it, if he is to survive.
What could possibly go wrong?
Experience the start of an explosive Military Sci-Fi Series from bestseller Rick Partlow, author of Drop Trooper, and debut author Pacey Holden.

This was a surprisingly random find. I was growing slightly desperate and was on my fourth book of the week (having dumped the other 3) but when I came across this book, I gave the sampler a quick peek, saw some badass scene in the first chapter (prologue) and thought, āThis is the one!ā I had really enjoyed the writing, my deciding point in getting the book, and probably one of my favorite aspects about the book. The battle scenes were quick, chaotic, and felt like a warfield, and the emotions around it felt real enough to make me picture and visualize the scene perfectly. There was just enough description to make the average scene not too overwhelming, but the real fun kicks in on the battle and fight scenes. Itās an adrenaline rush of movement and everythingās so quick. Blink and youāll get popped in the face. Lose your attention and you might get shot. I really enjoyed those scenes and that final fight scene had a lot things happening. It was a race against time trying to save someone while trying to make your way through the chase and fight and stay alive. It gets really intense! I do love me intense some intense scenes!
Another thing I really loved about the book were the main character John (Jack) Bennet and his pilot, Robin (Birdy) Hartley. When I saw the book revolved around a ship, I was kind of expecting a whole crew of people (or at least one or two more others). Iām a sucker for a ragtag crew, kicking ass, while throwing quips and banter around so I was just a biiit disappointed in seeing that it was just Jack and Birdy (mostly Jack because as Birdy doesnāt fight and mostly stays up in the skies or trying to sneak off with Jackās money into a bar or casino). I like that Jack, despite all of his military background, because heās on his own now, and heās just one guy against a gaggle of enemies, itās natural in that heās constantly getting away by the skin of his teeth, doesnāt get everyone out together, or just gets overpowered. I like that realism. I just got off a round in Fire Emblem where my archer walked away scrap free after 7-8 enemies surrounded him because heās too overleveledā¦
I really enjoyed Birdyās character too. This guy is a drunkard who lives for his next moments with the bottle and lands himself a job in which one of the job duties is to be sober (and remain sober) but he ends up getting himself into a tussle [almost] straight into his role, drunk out his mind and giggling like a madman. By the end though, he was pretty reliable. He really couldāve left Jack to die, but kept his word and stuck around. Heās a mess of a person, but a decent enough human when not blasting his remaining brain cells with happy juice. Even when he was drunk, he wasnāt such a bad person either, just annoying and stubborn.
I will say though, Jackās abysmal luck is laughable. This luck makes up most of the plot because of the situations he lands himself in. This guy had a future plan only to come home to betrayal after betrayal (heartbreaking really; wtf parents does something like that? And his fiancĆ©e too??), get a scrap of metal of a starship as his only piece of his share in the family company being sold, gets a drunkard as his only pilot (budget was tight okay?), still aims for a relatively peaceful and civilian life with a shipping business of his own, gets his business Amazon/Walmartād before it even takes off, gets tied up with royally pissing off a mobster for his first delivery, lands himself in prison, has to take another job and ends up as a bounty hunter (there goes his hopes and dreams of living a fight-less life), and finally gets roped into some major cult thing trying to get someone out of said scary major cult.
The world building was interesting, though we only got to experience a couple of worlds, we come across aliens, other humans, mobsters, and cults with the creepiest āeverybody looks alikeā vibe. Classic shiver-down-your-spine kind of cult. The weapons and ships were neat, though most of the concepts did occasionally fly over my head as general background information.
All in all, a pretty good read. It was the only one of four that I was able to stick with, so if nothing else in my review says much, this one small note might. I enjoyed the reading, while I canāt say I enjoyed Jackās awful luck at life, it did catapult the plot at a lightning speed because nothing says fast-paced until life throws whole trees at you when youāre still trying to recover from a single lemonā¦The characters were enjoyable, Jack felt real enough. I definitely enjoyed the writing and some of the dialogue. I enjoyed some of the other characters as well, such as Jackās love interest Val and a villain named Artemis (an enemy of an enemy is a sorta kinda, more like a bio-prisoner, of a friend of mine) who was a riot to read. If you enjoy sci-fi, spaceships, planet hopping, cult and mobster rage/vengence dodging, bits of romance, drunk but tries to stay sober pilots, and unlucky main characters, pick yourself up a copy of Pirate Bounty. You never know. You might enjoy it as much as I did.