Invaded by Melissa Landers (Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads)Also by this author: Starflight
Published by Disney Electronic Content on February 3rd 2015
Genres: Action & Adventure, Fantasy & Magic, General, Love & Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 368
Format: ARC
Cara always knew life on planet L'eihr would be an adjustment. With Aelyx, her L'eihr boyfriend, back on Earth, working to mend the broken alliance between their two planets, Cara is left to fend for herself at a new school, surrounded by hostile alien clones. Even the weird dorm pet hates her. Things look up when Cara is appointed as human representative to a panel preparing for a human colony on L'eihr. A society melding their two cultures is a place where Cara and Aelyx could one day make a life together. But with L'eihr leaders balking at granting even the most basic freedoms, Cara begins to wonder if she could ever be happy on this planet, even with Aelyx by her side. Meanwhile, on Earth, Aelyx, finds himself thrown into a full-scale PR campaign to improve human-L'eihr relations. Humans don't know that their very survival depends on this alliance: only Aelyx's people have the technology to fix the deadly contamination in the global water supply that human governments are hiding. Yet despite their upper hand, the leaders of his world suddenly seem desperate to get humans on their side, and hardly bat an eye at extremists' multiple attempts on Aelyx's life. The Way clearly needs humans' help...but with what? And what will they ask for in return?
Alienated was one of my surprise loves of last year! I didn’t think Aliens could do it for me, but Landers had me hooked and I was so excited when a copy of Invaded, book 2, appeared in my mailbox!
Invaded starts with star-crossed lovers… literally. Aelyx is on Earth trying to campaign to improve the relationship between humans and the L’eihr. Humans have no idea that their very survival depends upon his success. Cara is on L’eihr, trying to adjust… not only because she wants relations to be better, but because she has committed to spending her life with Aelyx there and she wants to be accepted.
If you’re picking this book up without grabbing the novella Until Midnight, do yourself a favor and stop. You’ll definitely want to start there. It’s a great lead in to this story and really shows the development of the relationship between Cara and Aelyx, and that’s desperately needed as these two are barely in the same place together in this installment.
Landers does a great job with the story, once again it’s fast-paced and exciting. We get alternating chapters from both Cara and Aelyx’s and the romantic focus ends up being the struggles of a long-distance relationship, which is hard when you’re on the same planet but imagine what it is when you’re not!
I really like where Landers is taking this series and the overall arching story here in book two was really wonderfully done. While Aelyx is on Earth, trying to keep himself alive, he’s also trying to rebuild the alliance and it’s proving more complicated than they had hoped. Cara too, is struggling on L’eihr. Someone is trying to get her in trouble in ways that could cost her her life, and her fears about the way her life will change by deciding to stay on L’eihr really have her digging deep to make a commitment. Ultimately the way these two things tie together really worked for me and while I saw a few things that were going to happen there were some definite things that really surprised me.
Negatives? Maybe there is one thing that bothered me, but I can’t really say what it was without spoiling anything, and while it bothered me a bit, I don’t know that I’d categorize it as a negative mostly because I ultimately don’t think Cara does it simply to keep the boy as it seem. That sounds totally vague right? Sorry but I’m not spoiling anything for anyone!
This series has a bit of everything for everyone. With romance, suspense and even some light-hearted humor Landers has created an intriguing series with issues that can are relatable to the world today. She digs deep into prejudices, culture differences, and creatively weaves them into a story about humans and aliens.
The ending has me excited to read a book 3 and I’m crossing my fingers that there will be one.
Thank you so much to Disney for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest thoughts!
About Melissa Landers
Melissa Landers is a former teacher who left the classroom to pursue other worlds. A proud sci-fi geek, she isn’t afraid to wear her Princess Leia costume in public—just ask her husband and three kids. She lives just outside Cincinnati and writes adult contemporary romance as Macy Beckett.
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