Review - Captured by Sam Burns and W.M. Fawkes

Lucas is stuck in a minimum wage job as a barista, because what use is a history degree. His boyfriend left him and is about to be married. And, he took their cat. Could his life get any worse? Somehow, “kidnapped by aliens” never even figured as a possible answer to that question. Only, these aliens are big, blue and very buff. And, one of them seems to have taken a liking to Lucas. Prince Kaelum is a hybrid, part human and part Thorzen. His people need humans to reproduce after they lost the ability to do it on their own, but many of them look down on humans and the hybrids as “weak” just because they're smaller. Kaelum doubts he will ever earn enough of their respect to become king.

In broad strokes, the plot of this book sounds a bit like a B-movie, or maybe high budget porn. Certainly, “kidnapped by sexy aliens” is a popular subject for books as well. There are a lot of parallels with another series I've read, The Harvest, where an alien species needed earth men to reproduce, but beyond that basic premise, these are two very different stories. As always, the devil is in the details. “Captured” introduces us to a new world, populated by new aliens with their own culture.

Lucas comes across as quite a relatable character. He's a nice guy but hasn't had the best luck in boyfriends, or much else in life. One of the hardest things to pull off in stories like this is the turnaround when the kidnapping victim overcomes their outrage at being taken against their will, and falls for their captor. We get to know Lucas and his thinking enough to make his evolving relationship with Kaelum entirely believable.

Kaelum and the culture he is a product of take some time to get to know, but he still comes across as an understandable person. In some respects, there's an element of a coming-of-age theme to the young warrior's story. The struggle of someone desperately trying to find their place in a world where they're seen as “weak” and inferior is certainly a classic theme of LGBTQ fiction. More than that, Kaelum is also a likeable character that you can root for on many levels.

I'll definitely be reading the next book in the series soon.

“Captured” is available from Amazon.