A confident beach read of a SF novel. Asaro's reputation, at least as I understood it, is for compelling hard SF in a space opera package. I definitely did not expect the fluffy paranormal romance!

The characters aren't complex here, and the dialogue is pretty weak, but Asaro does get props for dealing with combat and trauma in a thoughtful way. Not at all my usual read but I would recommend it to space opera fans who enjoy intrigue and romance. ( )

Sauscony Valdoria called Soz,is not pleased when into the bar she and her team are drinking in there walks in a group of Aristos. The Aristos have a bad reputation through the galaxy because they get pleasure from the painful emotions of their victims. She should know she was once subjected to one of their tortures.

Soz is confused when one of the Aristos buys her a drink and she touches his mind and its not like the others. In fact its more like her psychic powers.

I apologize if my plot summary is a bit brief and uninvolved but this book was not to my taste.

I cant believe this turns up on so many sci-fi romance lists. Let me be clear its not that it lacks in romance..well I mean non-platonic relationships I should rather say.

Not only is the main character involved in a serious relationship,but also forms a psychic bond with a younger man,then has casual sex with yet another young man. Not to mention her having been widowed and clearly not being over the death of her husband.

It was just too much.

I had a hard time believing in the happy ending as it were.

Now you might call it hypocritical "HA so a man can be involved with many women but a woman cant?!" Thats now what I mean at all but I had expected a romance ,not her jumping from man to man.

I also found myself confused by the characters backgrounds and by the worldbuilding. There was not a very nuanced view of the Aristos either,no they were all monsters. But looking at the Skolians I would not say they were saints either. But no one calls them on it.

It became very tedious in places and I started to skim it to get to the Jabriol bits. ( )

From the synopsis, I didn't think this would be a story told from a First Person POV. I was expecting something more along the lines of "Battlestar Galactica." Instead, everything is seen from Soz's perspective. Soz is a woman, and a soldier, and that made Primary Inversion another difficult book for me.

I was reading Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins at the same time, and due to how much both books hit home for me, I ended up having to take a break from them to read something a bit more light-hearted. Primary Inversion is an excellent example of the kind of mental breakdown many soldiers, including myself, have gone through. While Soz's mental health isn't the only thing in the story, it stood out for me because Catherine Asaro wrote Primary Inversion nearly a decade before the subjects of PTSD and suicide rates increasing amongst Veterans began to make headlines as they came home from lengthy deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.

As hard as it was for me to face myself in a Sci-Fi novel, I wish there were more books like Primary Inversion. Reading about Soz was like looking in a mirror, and that's still a rare event for a woman who has been to war. ( )

I still truly love this book.
Soz remains one of my favorite literary characters.
This book introduces you to the world of The Ruby Dynasty. The premise is interesting if clumsy in places. 4000BCE an unknown race of aliens take human beings from South America and places them on the planet Raylicon. From Raylicon the humans reverse engineer the alien technology and settle the Stars.
Not often do we see Indigenous Peoples in space which is really cool.
Also an alabaster enemy who actively captures and enslaves other humans beings.
The science is interesting and the story moves along quickly. The author covers PTSD, generational trauma, domestic violence, incest and difficult/toxic family relationships.
The audiobook narrator was jarring after listening to the last few books in this series by a different narrator. Once I got accustomed to this narrator I liked her quite a bit. ( )

In a universe split between the sadistic empath-torturing Traders and the empath/telepaths running the Ruby Empire, a battle-scarred Ruby heir comes across the Trader emperor’s greatest secret—his sheltered, empath son. If you want a reversal of the jaded billionaire boy/naïve girl trope, here it is. ( )