Gabriel's Ghost by Linnea Sinclair

After a decade piloting interstellar patrol ships, Captain Chasidah “Chaz” Bergren, was climbing the ladder of the Federated Fleet. Then she was accused of ignoring orders, leading to the deaths of 14 of her crew. She was convicted based on manufactured evidence and sentenced to life on Moabar, a remote prison planet from which no one ever escapes. Chaz has no idea who set her up and in her brutal new surroundings she has no time to try to figure it out. Things take a turn for the worse when she's forced to kill a guard in self-defense and she finds herself face to face with something even more frightening---a ghost from her past.

Gabriel Sullivan is a mercenary and smuggler who supposedly died two years ago. Instead he's on Moabar to rescue Chaz in exchange for her help getting to the bottom of a plot that threatens the Empire. Someone is secretly breeding jukors, vicious creatures that were outlawed years ago because they're uncontrollable. Gabriel needs Chaz to help him stop the practice before it decimates Imperial space. He has information that the secret lab is on Marker, Chaz's home planet, and he needs her knowledge to find and destroy the lab. The mission means putting their lives on the line, but Chaz figures that she has nothing to lose. She didn't count on the fact that Gabriel is far more than the charming criminal she always knew him to be. He has secrets he's afraid to share with anyone, but as the attraction between him and Chaz grows he finds himself wanting to try. Chaz finds that her growing feelings for Gabriel may place her in far greater danger than what she faces from the jukors or her unseen enemies.


This is the second book that I've read by Linnea Sinclair and I liked it as much as I liked the first. It deals with many of the same themes as Games of Command. There's an outsider who has to hide his difference and a heroine with whom he has a long running competitive relationship & who he secretly loves long before she loves him. There are also questions of trust, not only between the hero and heroine, but with the larger power structure.

This isn't merely a rehash of Games though. Gabriel and Chaz are interesting characters in their own right and they have a complicated relationship. Through most of their time together Gabriel insists on keeping his secrets and demands that Chaz not ask him any questions. That was understandable, but still unfair of him and Chaz was both willing to simply trust him and aggravated by the need to. That created a dynamic in their relationship that was compelling to read.

Grade: A-