It is so easy to hate Asha. Don't get me wrong- she hasn't been the kindest Sa-khui to anyone. What we don't get is that she is a mother is grieving and has yet to overcome the grief of losing her child right after birth. We hear about it in earlier books, but never much beyond that the event made her bitter. It makes her actions understandable but not excusable, especially the way she treats Hemalo. I am glad they were able to talk out their feelings and work together on their relationship and their communication. No mother or parent should experience the loss of their child.

This is finally Asha and Hemalo's book. This one is sad and emotional, but I enjoyed it and was glad to see Asha and Hemalo work their issues out. Major trigger warning for grief and talk of child loss. 

This one is a very slow burn. The couple has a lot of trauma to deal with before they can get back together in a healthy way, but they do get their HEA. 

What It’s About: This book focuses on Asha, a rather surly character we’ve encountered in previous stories. It delves more into why she is the way she is and gives her a second chance at a happy ending.

Spice Level: There isn’t a huge amount of spice in this one, but it is between two aliens, which is something interesting that we’ve never really seen before in this series.

Realism: This is probably a more real volume than most for our big blue aliens. There’s a lot of grief here, but it makes sense, considering the situation, and it makes sense that this couple has drifted apart because of it.

Trope Alert: Second chance romance.

Trigger Warnings: Asha deals with the previous death of her child pretty explicitly in this book. The subject is handled very delicately, but it might still be too much for some readers. There are also some injuries to be had.

Final Thoughts: Once again, I’d like to say that Ruby made both a character and a topic I honestly didn’t want to read about palatable. I’ll always give anything she writes a chance because she has the ability to make anything appealing.

I feel like this could have been half as long and still gotten the point across. It was very emotional though and I choked up a bit at times with the deep sadness out FMC felt.

There are a lot of little novellas in this series. In some of the books in the series, there is a novella included at the end. But for the most part, they seemed like bonus chapters. This is the first time I’ve read one of the full-length stories where I felt I missed something by skipping a novella. Mostly, this story is about Asha and Hemalo, but it’s also about Asha and Claire becoming friends. I looked back when I first realized there are chapters with Claire’s perspective and realized I didn’t read her story, it was Ice Planet Holiday which is technically book 4.75. I still enjoyed this story, but wish I knew what had happened previously with Claire, Ereven, and Bek. You can bet I’ll be going back to read that one soon.

Anyway, onto this book. It is a marriage in trouble story, Asha and Hemalo having lost a child before the humans landed on their planet. The two were also not ever close before they resonated and didn’t really know how to communicate well with each other. Asha thought Hemalo disliked her and was even disgusted by her. Hemalo thought Asha was disappointed that he was the one she resonated with. There is a lot of yearning in this book, along with many misunderstandings. Asha is always trying to guard her heart and will quickly turn to sharp words if she thinks she is being attacked, pushed away, or harshly judged. Hemalo is a man of few words and feels arguing with Asha just upsets her more so he gives her space…space she does not want or need.

When it comes to that side story with Claire, I’m not sure if it will come into play later because I’m not sure of its purpose. I love the friendship she forges with Asha, which helped Asha to finally grieve properly for her lost baby. But the other stuff in Claire’s story makes me think there was some set-up for future stories.

This was an emotional roller coaster, so be warned. But Asha and Hemalo get their HEA and it’s wonderful. 

I'm so glad Asha and Hemalo grt their HEA. This was definitely a heavy book to read, but a necessary story for these two characters. HIGHLY suggest looking at CW prior to reading this book as it has some highly sensitive topics for some people. But overall it was very well done and a great addition to the series!

This isn't a spoiler because it's talked about in other books, but here's a TW/content description for those who wonder if they should skip this book: Asha and Hemalo had a baby who was born early and only survived a few hours. Their grief tore them apart, and they are separated at the beginning of this book. The death of the infant is not described on page, but it is frequently mentioned, and Asha's grief is described in detail. This is a spoiler:

In the epilogue there is a detailed childbirth scene of their second child, who is born healthy.

M/F sci-fi romance.

Alien/alien pairing this time around, not human/alien.

Quick, easy read that is still somewhat "light-hearted" despite dealing with grief and the loss of a child. The discussions between the FMC and MMC were occasionally repetitive, but fans of the Ice Planet Barbarians series will likely still enjoy this instalment overall. 

I enjoyed reading Asha's POV and thought her budding friendship with Claire was cute. 

Missing Spice, More Emotions, Confused POV

I feel conflicted writing this review and this will come down to what you are wanting from an IPB book because this one is very different. Ruby provides lots of notes in the end of the ebook as she always does explaining her why for many of the things I have issue with and I both get it but also was left unsatisfied. To start with since we are always locked into human female POV's in the mainline stories I was very excited to have a full length story of the two Sa-Khui individuals Asha/Hemalo. But that's not what happens, we get a story that is shared POVs of Asha and....Claire. One of the human women who got a POV in a novella. So I will be honest I felt miffed pretty immediately that the alien Asha immediately had to share her story with a human female. Ironically Asha's talks so much about feeling like an outsider who is not needed or wanted with all the human females around and honestly I was getting this feeling in her own book. Like her story with Hemalo is not interesting enough on it's own and needs a human female in it to make it interesting or relatable. Now Ruby stated she felt this was what she needed to do as a way to lighten the mood of the story and that she did not get much as an author from Hemalo so he has almost zero POV in this story but honestly I kept feeling like Ruby felt uncomfortable writing from the POV of an all alien couple and uncomfortable about writing so in depth about the grief of the death of a child. Which anyone who listens to this should know this goes very deeply into grief and depression surrounding a newborn dying. With such a heavy topic the weird switches to this BFF Claire storyline and holiday celebrations felt clunky and forced which I never feel with Ruby's books. This book almost felt like one of the shorts but not as smooth. There was more time scattered to world building in regards to the Metlacks being more human like, and Bek and his character development. There is very little spice in this story with nothing really even being mentioned until the last quarter of the story (chapter 15 of 19 chapters). And for the first time in this series the sex scenes felt more like checking off a list than being unique and character building. The scenes felt rushed, only one scene of actual sex the three other scenes were brief moments of fooling around and none had the same heat I normally find in the series. Ruby said in the after story notes she did not hear much from Hemalo and it shows I don't feel connected to this couple as much which was odd because I felt deep empathy for their experience and journey as a couple. But I felt like Ruby almost was struggling with the depth of emotion with this couple's story and kept herself and therefore the audience a little apart from these characters. There is character growth for sure but we sadly also get some feelings of hand waving of time from several days later to a 3 year jump forward. And I think in some ways that is what this book feels like a bit of a hand wave compared to the other stories. Again Ruby notes this is a device because the next story will feature Farli and she needed to be an adult for that story to be appropriate but it kind of makes this book feel like a Marvel movie-just a bridge to get to the next installment. The narration is steady in it's quality but I left this volume feeling a bit bewildered. I hate to say it but frankly I think folks could skip this one especially if newborn death and grief is too much for you and definitely if you were looking for a more typical spicy IPB volume. This story might have worked better as a novella but again I was sad because this was a story I had been looking forward to. I know others clearly love this story and don't mind the difference but I know these reviews are a way for folks to share their personal thoughts in case others might relate or so they can better know what to expect and decide if that is what they are wanting. I still love this series and am continuing on but this was the first time I genuinely felt a little meh at the end.