#36 What Darkness Brings by C.S. Harris

Kat’s husband has been arrested for the murder of a diamond merchant. Sebastian tries to clear his name before he is set to hang for the crime since he was found standing over the dead man’s body. The victim isn’t a nice man or honest businessman and there were lots of people that had an axe to grind with him. Also missing is a large blue diamond that used to belong to French royalty and now was in the process of being sold to someone in England. The case is ugly and there turns out to be more connections to Sebastian than just Kat and her husband.

#37 Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio

This is written as a memoir, so you know that at least for this book our hero will survive what happens to him but you may not realize how his choices will shape his future. The setting is very reminiscent of Dune in its technology. There is advance tech but it is tightly controlled by the religious class. Cryo sleep for interstellar travel mixes with gladiatorial games favored for entertainment. Earth is a long-gone myth that is the basis for the current religion. Hadrian has a love of languages and wants to study as a scholar and has expectations to be his father’s heir since he is the first-born child. But things don’t work that way and his plan to escape being exiled to the religious class and passed over in favor of his younger brother by his father has him desperate to escape that fate. Things don’t work out as planned and he awakens on a planet he doesn’t know with not a single resource to his name except his DNA and that he can’t use if he doesn’t want to be found by his family.
A good start to a new series and for all you hear about the wrong things that Hadrian will do in his future from himself as he breaks the fourth wall on occasion to remind us it is a memoir this is a story of a young man trying to find his way in the universe and come out on top.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley