3-1/2 stars. A nice story from KO'C. This one explained a lot of the background of the cyborg world. It was not one of her funny ones. I felt it could have benefited from more explanation and more scenes to lead the reader to believe more strongly in the developing feeling between the 3 protagonists. It seemed like the scenes were there but they should have been longer and more developed. For example in the hold on the way to the cyborg planet there is a woman who everyone knows is crazy and the heroine, Dahlia, is certain that the woman hates her and will attack her. As Dahlia is pregnant she knows she will not be able to defend herself. Poofta! she sees an old flame whom she hopes will protect her. They've been in this hold for weeks and she only notices him now? And then after all this build up, the cyborgs take the bad girl away before she can attack Dahlia. That just seems a weak plotting choice after all the build up. Anyway it was pretty good all around and I liked how the two cyborgs were jealous of each other in the marriage. The book seemed fairly telly instead of showy especially at the end. But all in all I liked it.

Thanks Carolyn F. for the loan. ( )

I do love this series, see my reviews for Cyborg and Cyborg Nation for the back story.
This is actually the first story of this series (I read it backwards and still loved it!) -- the story of Reuel and Dalia. The Cyborgs are trying to create their own civilization and Dalia is now pregnant with the first Cyborg offspring. The Cyborgs were bred with no feelings, and the Hunters were cyborgs given artificial memories to make them believe they were human. When Dalia finds out she's really not human and has been killing her own kind, she's devastated. Then she's scared of what may be gestating within her. What if she can't learn maternal feelings? What kind of offspring is it? Nobody knows as it's never been done! How can she choose between Reuel, the father (DNA donor) of her offspring, and Pierce, her buddy and friend from her earlier life? And with the uneven male/female ratio of the Cyborg Nation, will she have to choose?

I really do love this series. The scenes of labor and delivery are hysterical and are alone worth the cost of the book!! And how Dalia contrives to share offspring duties and lovemaking duties is a treat of Solomonic proportions. Don't miss this fascinating series...you may even want to read them in order! I plan to go back in a couple of months and do so... ( )

I read the second in the series, though this occurs almost concurrently. AGain, the world buiding is better than the relationships, and the writing felt more choppy this time. I liked it, didn't love it. Perhaps this was a world I only needed to visit once, though the start of the book was excellent with a really kick ass heroine breaking out of a building, the middle got bogged down, and there was too much time separated from the hero for no real reason, and misunderstandings that could have easily been cleared up. Felt clumsier than Cyborg. That being said, I will still look for more novels by O'Connor, as I enjoyed these ones.