This is the first book in Cara Bristol’s Dakonian Alien Mail Order Brides series, which is a spinoff from her Alien Mate series. You can read this series without having read the Alien Mate series, but I don’t think this series really covers how life is on Dakon, which would make understanding Darak a little bit harder. It is covered, just not to the detail as in the original series.
Alexandra Sutterman is a successful woman if you judged her by her pastry business, Your Just Desserts. However, she was not successful in the eyes of her mother. Her mother considered her business to be little more than a hobby. She was also upset Lexi hadn’t found a man to marry. Lexi’s mother wouldn’t even let Lexi bake the cake for her own sister’s wedding, it was going to be done by a “professional”. So Lexi decided she would really upset her mom and bring an alien to the wedding as her plus one.
Why did you decide to seek an alien mate?
“Torqueing my mother’s gourd” probably wasn’t the right answer. Deferred adolescent rebellion? Ditto. I couldn’t be too honest, or I’d be screened out of the program.
“I’m looking for true love, and I’m willing to search the galaxy to find it,” I wrote. I didn’t think I had a snowball’s chance of finding amore with an extraterrestrial, but I’d give the agency a shot at helping me out. As long as I got a date for the wedding weekend, I’d consider this experience a win.
How open-minded are you? Are you aware aliens may differ physically, socially, and culturally from humans?
Well, I hoped so! What would be the point of bringing a button-downed preppie home to meet Mom?
“The heart does not see differences, it sees only similarities,” I wrote.
Darak arrived on Earth without a large amount of knowledge on the place. He did have a fair amount of money from the illuvian ore he traded for money. He quickly determined that Alexandra was his mate. He knew it from the first time he saw her. Now he just needed to convince her of that fact.
I did have a job to do: make her happy and bring a smile to her face. I glanced at her mother. And nobody was going to stop me.
This romance has a few bumps in the road, since they come together for different reasons, but the pair quickly comes together and starts to see eye to eye. Lexi also continues to stand up to her mother who tries her best to prevent this from forming into a full relationship. Lexi’s sister even sees the relationship for what it is, sooner than Lexi does.
Since this is the first story that really has a large family dynamic, it made me realize we don’t know a whole lot about Dakon families. Sure, the first two books, the heroes are brothers, but there is no mention of parents or elders. We also don’t know much about Dakonian lifespans. Are the similar to humans? Do they have multi-generational relationships, similar to how we do on Earth? Just something I didn’t really think about when reading the original series, set on Dakon. But, with this story set on Earth, with our normal family dramas, made me wonder about Dakon.
I continue to enjoy these light, sci-fi romances. The characters are enjoyable and likable. You really root for the couple to come together as they hit the small bumps in the road.
**Book was provided to me by the author. This review is my opinion and was not requested or provoked in anyway by the author.