Book Review – Hunter’s Claim (The Alliance Book 1) By S.E. Smith

Jesse Sampson and her two younger sisters have lived a hard life on the streets of Seattle, Washington for the past several years.

Four years before, the Earth received its first visitors from space causing mass fear.

Alone in a world gone mad with just her sisters, she has learned to use the darkness and the remains of the city to survive and keep what was left of her family alive. She has seen the savage side of human nature and finds they are not much different from the aliens who conquered Earth.

The Trivators have taken control of Earth to prevent the humans from destroying it in their fear.

A world of warriors, they are sent out by the Alliance of Star Systems to seek out new worlds. Their mission is first contact. They are to establish communications with the leaders of the new worlds they find and bring them into the Alliance.

Any resistance is to be quickly subdued to prevent unnecessary death of the inhabitants of the new worlds they find. Their payment comes from the success of their mission.

Hunter is what he is called. A hunter, one of the elite clans of the Trivators who seek out those who resist. His abilities to track, capture and eliminate those who try to harm any warrior is renowned.

He finds the tables turned when he becomes the one captured by a group of ruthless humans. Hunter is shocked when a strange human female risks her life to help him escape only to disappear into the ruins of the city.

He now has a new mission, finding the female who saved his life. He is determined to find her before she is damaged by others of her kind.

What he finds is a reward beyond comprehension to a Trivator warrior, a family.

Can he convince Jesse that he can give her and her younger sisters a better life on his world? Or will fear keep her from accepting what he has to offer?

I have really mixed feeling on this book, on the one hand the writing is brilliant and the characters the author has created are engaging and you do find your self pulling for them but, on the other hand I do have a couple of issues with this.

I think the biggest problem I have is the time line of the story, it seems to be that Jesse and her sisters decide to completely trust these aliens far too quickly, I would like to have seem some sort of allusion to a passing of time where they had resisted and protested a little bit more. I do understand wanting to keep the book to a reasonable length but I would have much preferred it to have been split into two books, on the voyage to a new land where the relationship’s between Earthlings and aliens is built up over more time with greater mental and physical conflict, and the second bit starting with their arrival at the new world and a lot more description of the adjustments to arriving in this incredible new place.

However, I have to judge it based on how it is, so I am going to give it a four out of 5 stars, I did enjoy it I just wanted more.