Ravyn's Flight (Mass Market Paperback)

The main story centers on Ravyn Vedier. She is the communication expert on a team of 20 CAT specials - they go in and investigate if a planet is inhabitable. They were sent to Jarved Nine, which is strangely like Earth in terrain, air etc. The

only thing keeping this planet from being labeled a prime target for human habitation is the Old City. A town for about 20,000 to 50,000 people, perfect in every way, but no people. When Ravyn visited the Old City, she found it in pristine condition, just as if the people walked off. The intriguing riddle soon takes second place in her mind as she faces mind-bending horror. She is down in the subbasement of the CAT facility no more than 45 minutes, and returns to find her 19 CAT mates slaughter in a gruesome fashion and grotesquely arrange in the pattern of a flower.

Damon Brody and his team of six Special Ops force are on the other side of the Jarved Nine when the distress call comes from the CAT team. They arrive, discovers the slaughter and fear all are dead. Damon finds a terrified Ravyn covered in blood and hiding in under her bed. He sets his men to secure to building while he tries to get answers out of Ravyn. Damon makes her a cup of tea and finally gets a few shaky replies from her, immediately going on alert when Ravyn insists she did not set off the emergency distress beacon. They rush to find his men, and come upon what Damon fears. His team slaughtered in the same fashion as the other 19, this time arranged like a lightning bolt. Grabbing what they can carry to survive, they are left on their own to survive for three weeks until a military rescue mission is launched to find them. The only place left for protection is the Old City. They have to get there before the killer stalking them runs them to ground. It's their growing to trust of the other, which makes the grueling pace bearable.

Colonel Alex Sullivan is Ravyn's stepbrother. He raised her after their parents were killed. He knows something is bad wrong on Jarved Nine and he is determined to lead a team into rescue his sister...if she is still alive. He is satisfied with the members of his team, except the communications expert. Stacey is a CAT member, like his sister; in fact, she is Ravyn's best friend. Alex sees Stacey as a liability to his team. She is non-military. His gut tells him something terrible has occurred on this distant planet and Stacey's not trained to follow orders, not trained to defend herself, so he is going to push herduring the weeks long voyage to Jarved Nine, trying to see she stays alive. Stacey has been in love with Alex since she met him at Ravyn's and her graduation years before, so working under the harsh taskmaster is disturbing in more ways that one.

The secondary story of Alex and Stacey could make a novel on its own, but under the skillful talent of O'Shea, she weaves both tales into a breathtaking pace. The world of Jarved Nine is vividly created, the characters achingly real. You will care

for Damon and Ravyn, and the secondary Alex and Stacey. She starts with the first couple running for their lives and the second desperately rushing to their rescue, in a breakneck pace for the reader that never lags, never fails to mesmerize.

Be warned, this is a book once you pick you won't be able to put down. I was looking forward to the Power of Two before I read Ravyn's Flight, now I desperately looking forward to it!

Ravyn is the communications expert for her team, which is explring the new planet in the hopes of human colonisation, when they are mysteriously massacred while she is in the basement. Damon Brody and his Special Operations unit are on the same planet at the same time, and come to her team's base in response to the emergancy beacon. While he is taking care of Ravyn, his team is also massacred, and their transport destroyed. Ravyn and Damon set out on a cross country treck to the Old City, the name of the lost civilization on Jarved-Nine, in the hopes of escaping from the murderer.

The story progresses as one would expect of a wilderness flight, with plenty of danger and a little personality clash. Damon and Ravyn develop as people with pasts as they work at escaping. It is only toward the end that you are forced to deal with some otherworldly effects, and by then, I had pretty much bought into the concept so it mostly worked for me.

This book is far above the average sci-fi romance hibrid, but there were still a few problems, such as the message from the last inhabitants of the planet, telling Ravyn and Damon how to defeat the creature stalking them. Other than that, this was a very satisfactory book