Escape Clause
Author: Cara Bristol
Reviewer: Sophia Rose
Rating: B+
What I’m Talking About:
Cardonia needs women and their leader reluctantly must set the example of joining the matchmaker program. Krogan can hack it for a year, right? Is there really a woman out there who’s willing to do a match knowing there’s an expiration date involved? Cara Bristol begins another alien romance series with a familiar premise and makes it her own.
Escape Clause is a marriage of convenience and fake mates-style romance that introduces the background and characters for a new series. It reads quickly, is told from alternating perspectives, and gets right into matters.
Krogan’s people need compatible alien women after a mysterious viral attack is unleashed – purportedly accidentally by a neighboring alien nation- that left them scrambling to get their sick females into stasis tubes while hunting down an antidote. In the meantime, unattached males who want a relationship are encouraged to access the Cosmic Mates’ matchmaking site. Krogan must lead by example though he has abandonment issues and has no plans to let a woman anywhere near his heart let alone stay long term.
Meanwhile, Hope, who is a far future Cinderella, needs out of her new earth village pronto before her version of the wicked stepmother tries to marry her off to the opposite of a prince. She doesn’t want anything permanent and has plans to come back so the Cosmic Mates with its escape clause is the perfect solution.
I enjoyed this light sci-fi romance with a few suspenseful moments and a quick, but developed romance between two people who start off on the wrong foot, but end up wanting more once they get to know each other. I look forward to seeing what comes next as the series develops and has a new romance pair and that hint of intrigue over the mysterious virus.
My Rating: B+
Sophia Rose
About the Book:
The only thing they can’t escape is love…
After a nano-virus devastates Caradonia, leaving the planet in desperate need of women, leader Krogan launches a last-ditch effort to save their civilization—convince men to accept human brides through Cosmic Mates.
Krogan himself has no time or desire for a wife. A driven workaholic, he’s focused on solving his planet’s problems and maintaining peace in the world. But his people look to him to set an example. If he doesn’t take a wife through Cosmic Mates no one else will either. Thankfully, there’s an escape clause, and at the end of the trial period, he intends to use it.
Fleeing a horrid and powerful man, Hope Bennett reluctantly agrees to a marriage of convenience with an alien. The last thing she desires is to be locked into an unwanted union. Been there, almost did that. Fortunately, the escape clause in the contract gives her an out, and when it’s safe, she can go home to Terra Nova.
Hope and Krogan promise each other a marriage in name only and vow to separate when the contract provisions are satisfied. But as they let down their guard, they recognize a kindred spirit in each other. Love and passion blossom, and each begins to long for a deeper, permanent union.
Just as their secret wishes are about to be fulfilled, violent tensions erupt out of the pandemic, forcing Krogan into a dilemma—to save Hope he must invoke the escape clause of their marriage contract.
If he sends her away, will she ever come back?
Release Date: July 15, 2024
Publisher: Cara Bristol
Series: Cosmic Mates #1
Genre: Sci-Fi Romance
Format(s): paperback (231 pages), e-book
Book Source: Author
Purchase Info:
Amazon (affiliate link)