More Than Stardust, the third in Vivien Jackson’s Wanted and Wired sci-fi romance series, features two of the recurring characters from prior books, Garrett and Chloe. Their chemistry was hinted at previously and though Garrett is mildly interesting, Chloe really drives both the plot and my interest in this novel. Garrett is a pilot and conspiracy theorist, taciturn and good with computers. Chloe, on the other hand, is an AI who has become independently sentient. She has less personal physicality than a toaster, despite being made up of thousands of nanobots. She and Garrett have been friends since she first became sentient, and as a sentient being, she’s longed for the relationship she feels only physical presence can bring.

Book Five in Cathy Yardley’s Fandom Hearts series, Playing Doctor, finally treats us to Cressida’s story. I think my wife and I have been eagerly rooting for this Frost sister’s Happily Ever After since at least Book Two. The Frost sisters all live together and jointly run a bookstore (and now fandom destination) in Snoqualmie, WA. Cressida, because of her acute agoraphobia, is far more sheltered than her sisters. As the book opens,one of her coping mechanisms is to find adventure vicariously on internet message boards devoted to finding the treasure hidden by an eccentric author of one of her favorite books. Working with her internet crush (and hero of Playing Doctor), Noah, she sets off in the family RV to have her own real-life adventure.

Nightchaser is the first entry in Amanda Bouchet’s new trilogy, also called Nightchaser. I’ve been looking forward to her next work ever since I read the last page of her fantasy romance Kingmaker Chronicles. Nightchaser doesn’t disappoint, and brings another kickass heroine in the vein of Catalia. As a warning, like the Kingmaker Chronicles, the entire series centers around a single pair of main characters, so don’t expect a happily-ever-after at the end of the first two novels (I fully expect one at the conclusion of the trilogy).