Chilling Effect
2 primary works
Book 1
“Jam-packed with weird aliens, mysterious artifacts, and lovable characters... a tremendous good time and an impressive debut.” -- Kirkus Reviews (starred)
A hilarious, offbeat debut space opera that skewers everything from pop culture to video games and features an irresistible foul-mouthed captain and her motley crew, strange life forms, exciting twists, and a galaxy full of fun and adventure.
Captain Eva Innocente and the crew of La Sirena Negra cruise the galaxy delivering small cargo for even smaller profits. When her sister Mari is kidnapped by The Fridge, a shadowy syndicate that holds people hostage in cryostasis, Eva must undergo a series of unpleasant, dangerous missions to pay the ransom.
But Eva may lose her mind before she can raise the money. The ship’s hold is full of psychic cats, an amorous fish-faced emperor wants her dead after she rejects his advances, and her sweet engineer is giving her a pesky case of feelings. The worse things get, the more she lies, raising suspicions and testing her loyalty to her found family.
To free her sister, Eva will risk everything: her crew, her ship, and the life she’s built on the ashes of her past misdeeds. But when the dominoes start to fall and she finds the real threat is greater than she imagined, she must decide whether to play it cool or burn it all down.
Book 2
Space adventure at its finest - Prime Deceptions is the outrageously fun sequel to Valerie Valdes' debut Chilling Effect, featuring the further adventures of Captain Eva Innocente and her misfit crew. For fans of Becky Chambers, Mass Effect and Firefly.
Captain Eva Innocente and the crew of La Sirena Negra find themselves once again on the edge - not just of populated space, but also of a covert war between The Fridge, the intergalactic crime ring, and The Forge, a secret alien research organisation.
When Eva's sister contacts her with a request to find a missing scientist, the trail ends at the last place Eva ever wanted to see, the site of her greatest failure. Joining a group of freedom fighters seeking to overthrow a dictator, Eva learns that The Forge is in the final phase of creating a new Gate - dangerous technology that was thought to be lost forever...