Review of Girl Under Glass

Synopsis - From Goodreads

What do you do when you’re trapped between death and the devil? To protect her young daughter from a madman and a tyrant, Rachel Pryne must trust an enemy—one of the alien warriors who conquered Earth.

It is 2032, the Ohnenrai—Earth’s humanoid alien conquerors—orbit the planet, and Terran reproduction is failing. Rachel Pryne, a trained medic, is struggling to protect her seven-year-old daughter, Pearl, from the sexual predation of their penal colony’s leader. Having fathered the girl by rape, he now intends to take her on her eighth birthday, only six weeks away.

Then Rachel finds her unlikely champion—an injured Ohnenrai soldier who appears in her yard one stormy evening. She knows she may be choosing death over the devil in trusting this warrior, but she doesn’t know that her trust, and her DNA, will make her one of the most important and endangered people to ever set foot aboard an Ohnenrai starship.

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Equal parts science fiction, suspense, and romance, Girl Under Glass moves from a post-apocalyptic wilderness in the American Pacific Northwest to a high-tech world aboard an alien starship furnished with all the stolen comforts of Earth. Readers meet Rachel Pryne, whose parents' lifelong and life-ending connection to the Ohnenrai has set her upon a path she never wanted to travel. And they're introduced to Ehtishem, an Ohnenrai soldier who exists to save his dying people, but who faces enemies from within and without his own military.

The only possible solution to the Ohnenrai’s extinction lies within Rachel, but all she wants to do is protect her daughter and see Earth’s alien conquerors go straight to hell.

Review

I loved Girl Under Glass because it is unique and stands out; something that is quite an achievement what with the amount of books of all genres available. It is an amazing science fiction romance set in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world and this blend of genres gives it a wide appeal as well as making it different and interesting.

Rachel lives in the camp of suffer where she has been shunned due to unfair circumstances and only given minor acceptance due to her skills as a medic and most importantly her 7 year old daughter Pearl, a prize in a place where children are growing rare and girls even rarer. When an injured Stranger – the alien race that is Earths conquerors – turns up at her doorstep, she finally has a chance to escape the oppressiveness of suffer and its religious fanatic leader Cyrus who has been Rachel’s tormentor for many years. However, though she doesn’t know it, Rachel holds the key to the survival of the Ohnenrai and that means both her and her daughters lives are in danger.

In my opinion the world building was excellent and the romance is beautifully written and well developed. Normally it is quite rare for a book to have both a good romance as well as an in depth story but Monica has succeeded where many other authors fail. Girl Under Glass also has lots of depth and emotion caused by Rachel’s tragic past and it is nice to see her grow as a character and come to grips with all that has happened and be stronger because of it.

Unlike several science fiction books, the backstory and world building is not all just thrown in at the beginning but instead mentioned a little bit at a time. Some people might not like this as you could possibly get confused but I really liked the fact that there wasn’t a boring information overload at the beginning. If you would prefer to have all the backstory at the beginning the author has a free short prequel available on her website called A Sad Jar Of Atoms that has most the backstory nicely summed up.

The book had quite a lot of suspense and there is several unexpected twist that keep the reader engaged and some of them are very surprising, you will not guess at them happening and this only adds to the wide appeal that I believe this book has. Girl Under Glass definitely has something for everyone as it has so many elements in it. I definitely recommend it as a must read and I am excited to read the sequel when it releases.

*I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review*