Regenesis

Ok, so I’m sure you all realise this by now but I absolutely love this series. In Catalyst we meet a few new characters as well as some old favourites and the sarcasm and sexual tension are flying from the start – my favourite combination! And just as a side note – I think the cover is gorgeous – I love the tats!

Vala is searching for Jacks, the guy she fell in love with when she was a teenager. It’s been years since she saw him last and she has suspicions that Jacks was involved with something terrible which is why he disappeared. Enlisting the help of the best tracker in the galaxies they start to search for him to get some answers. But unbeknown to them, their search is raising alarms and they are setting themselves up for trouble. When Vala is kidnapped along with Bastian, the hot young Gwinarian who has been lusting after Vala for a while, things take an unexpected turn and Vala finally gets the answers she needs.

Vala is strong minded but she also has a vulnerable side that she tries to keep hidden. She was hurt in the past by Jacks and she seems almost scared to accept the relationship that starts to develop with Bastian. When she was using the same excuses to keep herself away from Bastian as Jacks had used with her it appeared to me that it was a way of keeping her heart safe but it also seemed like she had honestly come to believe what Jacks had always said about their age difference being an issue. I was pleased that as soon as she realises her feelings for both men she knows she won’t let either of them go, I think if she had reacted in any other way it wouldn’t have felt true to her character.

Bastian has been through so much in his life but he hasn’t let it affect his future. He’s remained a kind, gentle person with a core of steel that will defend the ones he loves any way he can. He seems like a gentleman, the type to open doors for you and take your coat but he still has that bit of a rough side where he would ravage you and give you all the pleasure you could handle (just my type of guy!)

Jacks is a troubled person with a lot of regrets and is carrying around a lot of guilt. He’s isolated himself from everyone so that he can try to put right what he views as his past wrongs. The attraction that he felt for Vala never wavered but whereas he always felt he was too old to ever act on the way he felt, when he is reunited with Vala and Bastian is on the scene he realises that age really doesn’t matter and you have to grab happiness any way you can find it and hold on to it for as long as you can. The trust that these three had and the strength that they obviously found in each other was lovely.

It was fantastic to see the reappearance of Jarana and Lux, they bring so much to every scene that even when they are in the background you can’t help but notice them there. The sarcastic banter and the love hate friendship that they have is so funny and fits their personalities perfectly. I love that there’s always new characters but the old favourites stick around.

Dani Worth has created a beautifully colourful world with amazing strong characters that you just can’t help be drawn in to. I loved this book just as much as the others in the series and as I’m sure you can guess I can’t wait to read the next one!

OMG! I'm LOVING this series! Dani Worth is a new author to me and this series is wonderful! While it's not a terribly long book, it's packed with emotion and a little bit of angst and lots of hot sex!

Janara is a tracker hunting down a replicant who escaped from prison. She tracks him back to her home planet Kithra. Kithra was destroyed years ago in an explosion and she lost her entire family. When finds the replicant and forces her/him to change to his normal form, we find out she is a he and he's in a relationship with hot Erik. Erik is stunned!

But the twists don't stop there. We don't find out all the nitty gritty details until the end. Will Janara return the replicant to prison? Will she fall in love with him? Will she fall in love with Erik? Will she stay on Kithra?

I loved this story. It's so full of twists and turns and made me cry! I felt so bad for all of them. They're all in an awful situation and trying to make the best of it.

Dani Worth did an amazing job of packing so much emotion into this story and making me feel for all of them. It's amazing!

I have been a fan of Dani Worth since I stumbled upon the first of her Kithran Regenesis series Kithra shortly after its release. I really enjoyed the story along with all of the questions left unanswered, the fate of the planet’s citizens, and how those who survived the disaster were going to handle the longer-term aftermath. As a result I eagerly picked up book two when it was released and let out a cheer when I found out that there was going to be a book three. Not surprisingly, I leaped at the chance to read and review Catalyst. Sometimes eagerly awaited books don’t manage to live up to my mental hype but this one certainly delivered. The Kithran Regenesis is one of those series where each succeeding book builds on information released in its predecessors. I think it is possible to start with this one because some of the back-story is nicely interwoven but I recommend starting from the beginning. As a result there will be a few spoilers from previous books but I will try to keep them to a minimum.

When Vala was 17 going on 18 she had her first serious crush on Jacks, a human visiting Kithra. Jacks viewed Vala as too young for him, so he tried everything he could think of to dissuade her feelings to include having a make-out session with his boyfriend in public. Gwinarians, the variant of human that lived on Kithra, matured at a much younger age than humans and their society did not have any taboos against multi-partner relationships so Vala was perfectly willing to join in. After Jacks caught Vala following him one night he tried once more to tell her that he was too old for her in what ended up being the last conversation they had before the explosions which rendered Kithra uninhabitable and killed most of the Gwinarians. Vala caught a glimpse of Jacks once more after that fateful conversation and based on what she saw, she eventually hired a Tracker to find him. Vala had her suspicions about him because that sighting was extremely circumstantial to the explosions. Jacks found out about the Tracker and hired some people to get the Tracker out of the way, only they grabbed Vala and a young man, Bastian, who had a crush on her. Vala and Bastian found themselves dropped on what appeared to be a deserted planet, not entirely hospitable towards Gwinarians, but during their search for shelter they ended up meeting Jacks.

I found that Worth used a rather interesting technique with this story. Vala had a huge crush on Jacks but he rebuffed her due to her age. Years later Bastian had a huge crush on Vala and she was trying to rebuff him. That situation gave Vala some small sympathy towards Jacks and how he must have felt which I think added depth to her character. She started off a very headstrong immature young woman. It became evident that over the years she had matured into a character worth following. Even though Vala had grown up when she encountered Jacks again she still had to struggle with the combination of years of mixed emotions ranging from love to hatred, to attraction to reluctant sympathy to anger. Watching her go through those swings just brought home how really complicated people and their emotions are.

Bastian, while younger than Vala, showed that he possessed a depth of maturity that she did not have during her crush on Jacks. He was persistent but he also made himself helpful instead of just mooning and skulking after Vala, which I certainly appreciated. He was also old enough to know his own mind and to subtly push his suit. Bastian almost seemed to provide the bridge and sometimes the buffer between Vala and Jacks. I think without his presence it would have been even more difficult to resolve the complicated past that tied Vala and Jacks together.

Jacks… I didn’t get as much of a feel for as I did the other two characters. I understood and admired his reluctance at the beginning of the book because Vala was rather immature. I also understood, after he told his story of the events, why he chose to hide out. I think I wanted both Vala and Bastian to learn more about Jacks because even during their encounters I felt he was still slightly remote.

Worth certainly had me speculating about all sorts of things as she threw in twists and turns. I wanted to know if and how Jacks, Vala, and Bastian would act on their mutual attraction and what the results would be. I wanted to know who was really behind the explosions and why. I wanted to know why Jacks was hiding out and why he tried to get the Tracker intercepted. I wanted to know if and how Vala’s friends would manage to find her. Luckily enough for me Worth answered most of my questions but in doing so she raised a few more. Overall I enjoyed watching Jacks, Vala, and Bastian interact together. I am looking forward to seeing what happens next as the quest for answers continues.