What do you think?
Rate this book
The Delphic Dame #1
Salvage
Secrets can get a girl killed. Cherry Pendit knows to keep hers close. But what if it’s whispering to her? What if it’s warning her of danger on the galactic horizon, and only she can save her clan?
To save the people she loves, Cherry will have to risk her life to rescue a man she’s never met.
A hunted man, a man abandoned on a derelict space station, on the far side of a black hole.
Salvage is the first book in The Delphic Dame space opera trilogy. It picks up Cherry’s story two years after Nora’s disruption of Human Sector society in The Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist. Unforgettable characters in a fast-paced, futuristic thriller.
To save the people she loves, Cherry will have to risk her life to rescue a man she’s never met.
A hunted man, a man abandoned on a derelict space station, on the far side of a black hole.
Salvage is the first book in The Delphic Dame space opera trilogy. It picks up Cherry’s story two years after Nora’s disruption of Human Sector society in The Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist. Unforgettable characters in a fast-paced, futuristic thriller.
251 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 22, 2023
About the author
Jenny Schwartz
108 books490 followersAustralian science fiction & fantasy author.
http://authorjennyschwartz.com/
http://authorjennyschwartz.com/
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
June 11, 2024
3.5/5.0
This story is the first of a three book spin-off from the Xeno-Archeologist series that I absolutely adored! Cherry, the MC, is the sister of the MC of that series and it’s great to get to follow her life and know her better as she establishes herself as a bad-@#$ character of her own! I especially like her open and friendly personality that is backed by street-smarts that came from a horrific childhood in the slums. She is kind but savvy and does NOT let people control or bully her.
The secondary characters are creative, and I love Dylan! I haven’t made up my mind about the whole crab-people/Trios twist, though. And, as with the series this is taken from, this first book is a bit slow moving in places. Even so, I will absolutely continue with the hope that it will be just as exciting and enjoyable as its predecessor!
This story is the first of a three book spin-off from the Xeno-Archeologist series that I absolutely adored! Cherry, the MC, is the sister of the MC of that series and it’s great to get to follow her life and know her better as she establishes herself as a bad-@#$ character of her own! I especially like her open and friendly personality that is backed by street-smarts that came from a horrific childhood in the slums. She is kind but savvy and does NOT let people control or bully her.
The secondary characters are creative, and I love Dylan! I haven’t made up my mind about the whole crab-people/Trios twist, though. And, as with the series this is taken from, this first book is a bit slow moving in places. Even so, I will absolutely continue with the hope that it will be just as exciting and enjoyable as its predecessor!
June 25, 2024
Book 1 of a 3-part, serialized, SF novel
The Delphic Dame (DD) trilogy is a spin-off of Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist (AXA). Similar to that series, none of these three books stand alone. To experience the complete DD story, it is important to read all three books, and read them in order. In addition, you will not know who a lot of the subcharacters are in this trilogy if you haven't read the AXA series in its entirety. It is highly recommended that you read that first, and read it in order, as well. This series is also a spoiler in some ways for the AXA series. So it ideally should not be read before reading that series, if you plan to read AXA. This series begins three years after the events in the final book of AXA.
The FMC of this series, Cheryl ("Cherry") Pendit, is the 24-year-old half-sister of Nora, the FMC of AXA. Unlike AXA, which is told from the dual POV of Nora and Liam, its MMC, this trilogy is told from the single, first-person POV of Cherry. This means that there is no MMC. Cherry has a love interest, Hugh Auden (whose age is never given, but I presume is in his early thirties). As a diehard romance fan, I do not consider any love interest who has no POV to be a coequal MC. Hugh is also not a dynamic, mover and shaker like Liam. He is an engineer by education and job training, and is on the run from a death sentence for rescuing, three years ago, the last living survivor of a genocide that Hugh's interstellar, human-federation society committed 30 years ago against the katangs, a sentient-crab civilization.
This first book introduces the important characters who appear in-person, onstage throughout this trilogy. We also get to revisit, in brief appearances, many of the major players of AXA. They are never onstage in the flesh, but are in contact with Cherry via long-distance, voice-only conversations across vast distances of space, within a weird-science, semi-magical comm connection called, "burrtalk." Those appearances serve as a pleasant extended epilogue of the HEA of Nora and Liam. They are currently living on the Capitoline Border Station, have a toddler son, and Nora is expecting their second child. Their adopted daughter, Aria, doesn't want to live in space anymore and is attending school and living in Nora and Liam's mansion on Capitoline. Jonah remains with Nora, and Cherry continues to have no clue as to the secret of his true origins. She has still not been made privy this knowledge by the end of this trilogy, because it is Jonah's secret, and he does not want it to spread beyond Nora and Liam. As far as Cherry knows, Jonah is simply an extraordinarily superior AI android.
Due to having no access to his POV, we never get to deeply know Hugh and, similar to AXA, Cherry and Hugh are merely comrades in arms, and are also separated for a huge period of time and then, suddenly, with no buildup onstage at all, they are totally committed romantically. At least in AXA, this happens about one-third through the series, and from that point on they have a terrific, cooperative relationship. But in this series, Cherry and Hugh do not become romantic partners until the very end of book 3. This may not be an issue for readers who like zero sex in their romance plots, because Cherry and Hugh do no more than share one or two kisses, unlike Nora and Liam in AXA, which offers "closed bedroom door" sex.
When the AXA series ended three years ago, Liam's youngest sister, Phoebe, and Cherry were starting university. There is no explanation in this novel as to what happened with that. Presumably Cherry dropped out, but why and when? There are other questions that are never answered as well: At what point did Nora give Cherry her incredibly expensive, technologically advanced, personal spaceship, the Delphic Dame? When and how was Cherry trained to be the extremely competent pilot she obviously is? Why has Cherry distrusted her beloved sister, Nora, so much that, until very late in this series, she does not reveal that she has a burr-related talent of being an oracle?
Speaking of burr talents, there is no explanation whatsoever, anywhere in this trilogy, of how Nora, presumably in conjunction with incredibly brilliant Jonah, created burrtalk. When she brought up the idea at the end of the final book of AXA, Jonah said Nora should never, ever attempt it, because it would "destabilize reality," a vague, weird-science phrase that he did not explain at that time and is never discussed in this series.
My biggest issue, by far, with the world-building of this novel is the most central feature of this series: the katangs, a race of sentient, highly intelligent crabs, who have a civilization advanced enough that they fly spaceships. Their life cycle and appearance is that of crabs found on Earth, and that type of crabs apparently exists on the planet that Cherry is from as well, because when she is first introduced to Dylan, she instantly recognizes him as "the cutest crab to ever have existed." Real-world, non-sentient crabs can spend only limited time on dry land, because they must keep their gills moist, and the female crab sprays her fertilized eggs in the ocean. Larvae hatch from the eggs and drift on open water, feeding off of microscopic organisms. Crabs do not form highly organized colonies or communities. They are generally solitary as adults. Dylan, the crab child we are introduced to in this novel, looks like a typical, non-sentient crab, and he started his life as a fertilized egg that hatched into a larva, similar to real-world crabs. We are told he was a larva in a life pod that was floating among the wreckage of a katang spaceship that had been destroyed 30 years before, when Hugh rescued him, and he morphed from that form into a recognizable crab. Also similar to real-world crabs, the katang do not form communities and go their own way. However, unlike real crabs, katangs are presented as completely land-based. I found it difficult to accept that isolated loners, who feel no sense of responsibility to each other and have no conception of the idea of teamwork, do not have a formal system of education, other than one mystical ceremony that supposedly transfers all knowledge of their species into the shell of the newly adult crab person, and who do not have fingers and opposable thumbs, could create spaceships and travel through space. It takes an extreme amount of education, training, cooperation, and infrastructure to create spaceships. Having set up all of that in the world-building of the katang, and given the way that crabs spawn with countless eggs sprayed into the open sea in the real world, and the ultimate revelation about the katang civilization in the final book, the entire premise of one little egg-hatched larva being put in stasis in a pod (where he survived for 27 years before Hugh found him) by presumably loving parents makes no sense, because it is utterly out of keeping with everything else the author has told us about the katang. It is obviously an homage to the 1978 Superman movie, in which baby Kal-El is placed in a life-sustaining pod by his biological parents, Jor-El, a leading scientist, and Lara Lor-Van, an astronaut. But what makes sense for these humans makes no sense for the katangs, as described.
An additional side irritation of the crab thing for me personally is that the huge, adult-sized, AI-android crab, Giol, is referred to as being around 7-foot tall. Throughout the world building, not only Dylan but Giol, as well, are everywhere else presented in their appearance as very similar to real-world crabs, but real crabs are not tall. They are very wide, however, due to the relatively huge span of their legs. Thus, all things being equal, if a crab was actually 7-foot tall, then its leg span would be more than 70-foot wide, and he simply would not fit into Cherry's spaceship.
Because of all of the above, it seems to me that there is only one way to suspend disbelief and go along with this whole crab-people situation, which is to choose to focus on another homage that Dylan represents: Sebastian, the cartoon crab in the Disney movie, The Little Mermaid from 1989. If one could imagine Sebastian flying a space ship, that is.
Similar to AXA, I would not characterize this series as SF romance, because it takes a while for Nora and Liam to get together, and when they do, it is basically a case of instalove and immediate, eternal commitment. What little there is of Cherry and Hugh's relationship that might be deemed a romantic courtship occurs offstage and is referred to in passing, in a single, brief conversation between them, in which Cherry tells Hugh they can't even think about a relationship until the main issue of the story, how to save Dylan's life and get Hugh's death sentence commuted, is resolved. Though Cherry and Hugh do work somewhat together as a team, their partnership is nowhere near as coequally dynamic as that of Nora and Liam. A large percentage of the book, all Hugh is given to do is tinkering with Cherry's spaceship because of his engineering skills.
This series is also, as is the case in AXA, about the creation of a "found family" AKA "family of affiliation," based on love and loyalty. But this time around it occurs in a much more limited fashion. The only newly found family for Cherry are Dylan and Hugh, and it is quite tame in comparison to the vibrant, extended clan that Liam and Nora build in AXA.
All in all, for me personally, this spin-off series did not remotely do justice to what was achieved in AXA and my enjoyment suffered greatly in comparison.
The Delphic Dame (DD) trilogy is a spin-off of Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist (AXA). Similar to that series, none of these three books stand alone. To experience the complete DD story, it is important to read all three books, and read them in order. In addition, you will not know who a lot of the subcharacters are in this trilogy if you haven't read the AXA series in its entirety. It is highly recommended that you read that first, and read it in order, as well. This series is also a spoiler in some ways for the AXA series. So it ideally should not be read before reading that series, if you plan to read AXA. This series begins three years after the events in the final book of AXA.
The FMC of this series, Cheryl ("Cherry") Pendit, is the 24-year-old half-sister of Nora, the FMC of AXA. Unlike AXA, which is told from the dual POV of Nora and Liam, its MMC, this trilogy is told from the single, first-person POV of Cherry. This means that there is no MMC. Cherry has a love interest, Hugh Auden (whose age is never given, but I presume is in his early thirties). As a diehard romance fan, I do not consider any love interest who has no POV to be a coequal MC. Hugh is also not a dynamic, mover and shaker like Liam. He is an engineer by education and job training, and is on the run from a death sentence for rescuing, three years ago, the last living survivor of a genocide that Hugh's interstellar, human-federation society committed 30 years ago against the katangs, a sentient-crab civilization.
This first book introduces the important characters who appear in-person, onstage throughout this trilogy. We also get to revisit, in brief appearances, many of the major players of AXA. They are never onstage in the flesh, but are in contact with Cherry via long-distance, voice-only conversations across vast distances of space, within a weird-science, semi-magical comm connection called, "burrtalk." Those appearances serve as a pleasant extended epilogue of the HEA of Nora and Liam. They are currently living on the Capitoline Border Station, have a toddler son, and Nora is expecting their second child. Their adopted daughter, Aria, doesn't want to live in space anymore and is attending school and living in Nora and Liam's mansion on Capitoline. Jonah remains with Nora, and Cherry continues to have no clue as to the secret of his true origins. She has still not been made privy this knowledge by the end of this trilogy, because it is Jonah's secret, and he does not want it to spread beyond Nora and Liam. As far as Cherry knows, Jonah is simply an extraordinarily superior AI android.
Due to having no access to his POV, we never get to deeply know Hugh and, similar to AXA, Cherry and Hugh are merely comrades in arms, and are also separated for a huge period of time and then, suddenly, with no buildup onstage at all, they are totally committed romantically. At least in AXA, this happens about one-third through the series, and from that point on they have a terrific, cooperative relationship. But in this series, Cherry and Hugh do not become romantic partners until the very end of book 3. This may not be an issue for readers who like zero sex in their romance plots, because Cherry and Hugh do no more than share one or two kisses, unlike Nora and Liam in AXA, which offers "closed bedroom door" sex.
When the AXA series ended three years ago, Liam's youngest sister, Phoebe, and Cherry were starting university. There is no explanation in this novel as to what happened with that. Presumably Cherry dropped out, but why and when? There are other questions that are never answered as well: At what point did Nora give Cherry her incredibly expensive, technologically advanced, personal spaceship, the Delphic Dame? When and how was Cherry trained to be the extremely competent pilot she obviously is? Why has Cherry distrusted her beloved sister, Nora, so much that, until very late in this series, she does not reveal that she has a burr-related talent of being an oracle?
Speaking of burr talents, there is no explanation whatsoever, anywhere in this trilogy, of how Nora, presumably in conjunction with incredibly brilliant Jonah, created burrtalk. When she brought up the idea at the end of the final book of AXA, Jonah said Nora should never, ever attempt it, because it would "destabilize reality," a vague, weird-science phrase that he did not explain at that time and is never discussed in this series.
My biggest issue, by far, with the world-building of this novel is the most central feature of this series: the katangs, a race of sentient, highly intelligent crabs, who have a civilization advanced enough that they fly spaceships. Their life cycle and appearance is that of crabs found on Earth, and that type of crabs apparently exists on the planet that Cherry is from as well, because when she is first introduced to Dylan, she instantly recognizes him as "the cutest crab to ever have existed." Real-world, non-sentient crabs can spend only limited time on dry land, because they must keep their gills moist, and the female crab sprays her fertilized eggs in the ocean. Larvae hatch from the eggs and drift on open water, feeding off of microscopic organisms. Crabs do not form highly organized colonies or communities. They are generally solitary as adults. Dylan, the crab child we are introduced to in this novel, looks like a typical, non-sentient crab, and he started his life as a fertilized egg that hatched into a larva, similar to real-world crabs. We are told he was a larva in a life pod that was floating among the wreckage of a katang spaceship that had been destroyed 30 years before, when Hugh rescued him, and he morphed from that form into a recognizable crab. Also similar to real-world crabs, the katang do not form communities and go their own way. However, unlike real crabs, katangs are presented as completely land-based. I found it difficult to accept that isolated loners, who feel no sense of responsibility to each other and have no conception of the idea of teamwork, do not have a formal system of education, other than one mystical ceremony that supposedly transfers all knowledge of their species into the shell of the newly adult crab person, and who do not have fingers and opposable thumbs, could create spaceships and travel through space. It takes an extreme amount of education, training, cooperation, and infrastructure to create spaceships. Having set up all of that in the world-building of the katang, and given the way that crabs spawn with countless eggs sprayed into the open sea in the real world, and the ultimate revelation about the katang civilization in the final book, the entire premise of one little egg-hatched larva being put in stasis in a pod (where he survived for 27 years before Hugh found him) by presumably loving parents makes no sense, because it is utterly out of keeping with everything else the author has told us about the katang. It is obviously an homage to the 1978 Superman movie, in which baby Kal-El is placed in a life-sustaining pod by his biological parents, Jor-El, a leading scientist, and Lara Lor-Van, an astronaut. But what makes sense for these humans makes no sense for the katangs, as described.
An additional side irritation of the crab thing for me personally is that the huge, adult-sized, AI-android crab, Giol, is referred to as being around 7-foot tall. Throughout the world building, not only Dylan but Giol, as well, are everywhere else presented in their appearance as very similar to real-world crabs, but real crabs are not tall. They are very wide, however, due to the relatively huge span of their legs. Thus, all things being equal, if a crab was actually 7-foot tall, then its leg span would be more than 70-foot wide, and he simply would not fit into Cherry's spaceship.
Because of all of the above, it seems to me that there is only one way to suspend disbelief and go along with this whole crab-people situation, which is to choose to focus on another homage that Dylan represents: Sebastian, the cartoon crab in the Disney movie, The Little Mermaid from 1989. If one could imagine Sebastian flying a space ship, that is.
Similar to AXA, I would not characterize this series as SF romance, because it takes a while for Nora and Liam to get together, and when they do, it is basically a case of instalove and immediate, eternal commitment. What little there is of Cherry and Hugh's relationship that might be deemed a romantic courtship occurs offstage and is referred to in passing, in a single, brief conversation between them, in which Cherry tells Hugh they can't even think about a relationship until the main issue of the story, how to save Dylan's life and get Hugh's death sentence commuted, is resolved. Though Cherry and Hugh do work somewhat together as a team, their partnership is nowhere near as coequally dynamic as that of Nora and Liam. A large percentage of the book, all Hugh is given to do is tinkering with Cherry's spaceship because of his engineering skills.
This series is also, as is the case in AXA, about the creation of a "found family" AKA "family of affiliation," based on love and loyalty. But this time around it occurs in a much more limited fashion. The only newly found family for Cherry are Dylan and Hugh, and it is quite tame in comparison to the vibrant, extended clan that Liam and Nora build in AXA.
All in all, for me personally, this spin-off series did not remotely do justice to what was achieved in AXA and my enjoyment suffered greatly in comparison.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 22, 2024
This is a spin-off of this author's The Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist series, which I absolutely adored. And Cherry had a hell of an arc in that series - I started out wanting to slap sense into her, and ended liking her very much and being thrilled she was getting a trilogy.
This picks up pretty much where that series wrapped: humanity has reopened the jump point in their system, and they are determined to reconnect with the rest of humanity (that series featured a splinter of human society, colonists that were heading to deep space via these jump points ... and got stranded when they were kicked out of the jump stream in a strange system, with the point they came out of locking down behind them). Cherry is on that mission ... but for her own purposes.
You see, Cherry has a secret: she's got a special ability from the burrs too. She has oracular abilities - basically like a clairvoyant, she gets glimpses of the future, nudges when something is important. She knows there is a man hiding in an abandoned space station on their route, and she knows if she doesn't find him and help him stay safe, her family will die.
That oracular nudge kicks off a really fun adventure - reconnecting with humanity, finding out what happened in their 300 years of absence, and learning about humanity's interaction with other aliens. And some things that went terribly wrong.
Have already jumped into the next book, because I can't put it down.
This picks up pretty much where that series wrapped: humanity has reopened the jump point in their system, and they are determined to reconnect with the rest of humanity (that series featured a splinter of human society, colonists that were heading to deep space via these jump points ... and got stranded when they were kicked out of the jump stream in a strange system, with the point they came out of locking down behind them). Cherry is on that mission ... but for her own purposes.
You see, Cherry has a secret: she's got a special ability from the burrs too. She has oracular abilities - basically like a clairvoyant, she gets glimpses of the future, nudges when something is important. She knows there is a man hiding in an abandoned space station on their route, and she knows if she doesn't find him and help him stay safe, her family will die.
That oracular nudge kicks off a really fun adventure - reconnecting with humanity, finding out what happened in their 300 years of absence, and learning about humanity's interaction with other aliens. And some things that went terribly wrong.
Have already jumped into the next book, because I can't put it down.
July 23, 2024
Romance:
June 24, 2023
Great read
I enjoyed Jenny's take on sci-fi and the introduction to Salvage's universe. Jenny's world building is fantastic. Its always interesting to discover what technology will be integrated into the plot and the explanations on how it works.
The story is packed with thrill and adventure - Expect plot twists and a nerve wracking plot rollercoaster.
Youll love Cherry and Dylan. Jenny writes strong female leads with a healthy dash of quirky. I see a similar character style to Kira from The House The Walked Between Worlds (if you haven't read this you need to!). I expect a slow build relationship between Cherry and Hugh, next book I'm sure that more secrets will be revealed as they dismantle their walls.
I'm a new fan of Jenny and have quickly come to enjoy her writing style. The events and characters of Salvage had me hooked in no time. I am now very much looking forward to what happens next in the story - if only I don't have to wait.
.
I enjoyed Jenny's take on sci-fi and the introduction to Salvage's universe. Jenny's world building is fantastic. Its always interesting to discover what technology will be integrated into the plot and the explanations on how it works.
The story is packed with thrill and adventure - Expect plot twists and a nerve wracking plot rollercoaster.
Youll love Cherry and Dylan. Jenny writes strong female leads with a healthy dash of quirky. I see a similar character style to Kira from The House The Walked Between Worlds (if you haven't read this you need to!). I expect a slow build relationship between Cherry and Hugh, next book I'm sure that more secrets will be revealed as they dismantle their walls.
I'm a new fan of Jenny and have quickly come to enjoy her writing style. The events and characters of Salvage had me hooked in no time. I am now very much looking forward to what happens next in the story - if only I don't have to wait.
.
June 25, 2023
Not worthy of salvage, scrap
Even as tenacious as l am, can’t believe plodding through 260 pages waiting for it to get better, some improvement, yielded nothing. The ending was even worse than could’ve imagined. Still sitting here thinking, huh; wow that was weird.
Even as tenacious as l am, can’t believe plodding through 260 pages waiting for it to get better, some improvement, yielded nothing. The ending was even worse than could’ve imagined. Still sitting here thinking, huh; wow that was weird.
July 4, 2024
***not a standalone!
The story starts midway into ??? I hadn't read the previous series and the synopsis didn't say you had to. It was just a confusing mix of circumstances that I as the reader knew Squat about. Warning... Read a sample first, don't make my mistake. P.s. I made myself finish, big Mistake...not even a HFN. It just ends ...really hate these kinds of stories. Will not read anymore of this writer.
The story starts midway into ??? I hadn't read the previous series and the synopsis didn't say you had to. It was just a confusing mix of circumstances that I as the reader knew Squat about. Warning... Read a sample first, don't make my mistake. P.s. I made myself finish, big Mistake...not even a HFN. It just ends ...really hate these kinds of stories. Will not read anymore of this writer.
February 7, 2024
Quick read, but a cliffhanger.
September 2, 2023
3.5 stars. This is Cherry’s story, Nora’s sister from the xeno-archeologist series.
What worked for me: 1) I liked the twist in how her burr sensitivity worked, though she didn’t need to be by the burrs to gain her power and being near them only strengthened her “gift”. 2) Dylan was a cute addition. 3) The father/son relationship was touching.
What didn’t work for me: 1) It was kind of slow in parts 2) Hugh wasn’t developed to be very likeable or dependable in stressful situations. 3) The relationship between Cherry & Hugh felt inorganic and more roommate-like. 4) Elves? What?
Ended on a cliffhanger, but am curious how the 2nd book will go.
What worked for me: 1) I liked the twist in how her burr sensitivity worked, though she didn’t need to be by the burrs to gain her power and being near them only strengthened her “gift”. 2) Dylan was a cute addition. 3) The father/son relationship was touching.
What didn’t work for me: 1) It was kind of slow in parts 2) Hugh wasn’t developed to be very likeable or dependable in stressful situations. 3) The relationship between Cherry & Hugh felt inorganic and more roommate-like. 4) Elves? What?
Ended on a cliffhanger, but am curious how the 2nd book will go.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 23, 2023
Confused Heroine and Not Great Guy
This book has so much potential in the beginning. The world building and characters were good. The female character is brave and very self aware. However, add in the male character and the book’s vibe changed. He was arrogant, and really demeaning at times. It is written all in the name of parental protection and family but it does not portray the sensitivity of love that I would expect.
I won’t be continuing the series.
This book has so much potential in the beginning. The world building and characters were good. The female character is brave and very self aware. However, add in the male character and the book’s vibe changed. He was arrogant, and really demeaning at times. It is written all in the name of parental protection and family but it does not portray the sensitivity of love that I would expect.
I won’t be continuing the series.
July 25, 2024
You Can Run…
DelphicDame1
I am so enjoying this continuation of the world created through the XenoArchaeology series, that starts with Astray.
Cherry Pinter is the half-sister of Nora Devi, who share a Forgotten mother. Forgotten is a term for those changed by contact with alien technology, who rejected the paradigm of self-proclaimed royalty to celebrate those changes, and instead melted into the larger population.
Their descendants still carry the effects of that change, though it isn’t always along predictable patterns. Cherry reads time.
Her time reading has put her on the path to rescue and hide a man hiding on a centuries abandoned space station. What she didn’t foresee was his adopted son - the lone survivor of an alien species, that his version of
Human obliterated in a genocidal frenzy.
It’s the why of things that puts them on a course to reconnect Dylan with his roots, and give them the tools to, hopefully, protect her family from the events coming.
Bye.
DelphicDame1
I am so enjoying this continuation of the world created through the XenoArchaeology series, that starts with Astray.
Cherry Pinter is the half-sister of Nora Devi, who share a Forgotten mother. Forgotten is a term for those changed by contact with alien technology, who rejected the paradigm of self-proclaimed royalty to celebrate those changes, and instead melted into the larger population.
Their descendants still carry the effects of that change, though it isn’t always along predictable patterns. Cherry reads time.
Her time reading has put her on the path to rescue and hide a man hiding on a centuries abandoned space station. What she didn’t foresee was his adopted son - the lone survivor of an alien species, that his version of
Human obliterated in a genocidal frenzy.
It’s the why of things that puts them on a course to reconnect Dylan with his roots, and give them the tools to, hopefully, protect her family from the events coming.
Bye.
October 23, 2023
Read this one on the recommendation of a friend. It is really a juvenile book. The sample looked interesting, but on reading the whole book, there are way too many things that just magically happen, it is too facile for my taste. The premise is that some people have special gifts. The main character's gift is that she gets premonitions of what she must do. But they are not detailed. She has the feeling that there is someone she needs to rescue and so she goes off on a salvage operation along with many other ships including some belonging to the Royal Class. She must engineer a minor crisis so that she is left alone on the abandoned station so that she can find and rescue an unknown person in order to save her family. That is all that she knows. It turns out to be a young man and his adopted alien son, who is the sole survivor of a race which is being exterminated by his community. It all winds up being a little too cute for me.
June 30, 2023
AMAZING and Surprising!!
I have been enjoying Jenny Schwartz’s work for a number of years, and her series are in my top three. I was so excited to learn that she was going to give us Cherry’s story and I was not disappointed. My initial impression of Cherry was that Cherry was very surface, and there was a not a lot of depth to her. I was so wrong. In Salvage I feel like we are getting to know Cherry for the first time, and that there is so much more to learn about her. The writing is excellent and nuanced, the characters interesting and beloved, and the story multi-layered and thoughtful. My first read was through KU, but I am buying this to add the my collection. Can’t wait until September!
I have been enjoying Jenny Schwartz’s work for a number of years, and her series are in my top three. I was so excited to learn that she was going to give us Cherry’s story and I was not disappointed. My initial impression of Cherry was that Cherry was very surface, and there was a not a lot of depth to her. I was so wrong. In Salvage I feel like we are getting to know Cherry for the first time, and that there is so much more to learn about her. The writing is excellent and nuanced, the characters interesting and beloved, and the story multi-layered and thoughtful. My first read was through KU, but I am buying this to add the my collection. Can’t wait until September!
November 11, 2023
This is a space-opera, but lighter than most. It reads like contemporary fantasy - focused on found family and human (or other creature) connections. Science is basically a form of magic in this book - there is no effort put into believability. This feels like a spin-off, and in researching after the fact, it is a spin-off trilogy after “The Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist”. The lead character has psychic powers, and she rescues a man who is hiding the last known child of an alien race that was wiped out by his people. She knows that he is pivotal to the safety of her family/clan. The alien kid looks like a very large crab, but speaks English easily enough. I was ok finishing it, but am not all that curious about what comes next.
June 25, 2023
Cherry has a very exciting adventure!
Cherry is on her own exploring as part of the Diamond Expedition's journey beyond the lens. She is as heroic and strong as her famous sister using her talent to protect the clan. Her sense of danger is very different talent than ever seen before which presents a new way of battling the enemies. The addition of several mysterious passengers within her ship provides the reader with plenty of emotional excitement. Its a fresh new reading experience with the type of expert writing one expects from Jenny Schwartz! Bravo!
Cherry is on her own exploring as part of the Diamond Expedition's journey beyond the lens. She is as heroic and strong as her famous sister using her talent to protect the clan. Her sense of danger is very different talent than ever seen before which presents a new way of battling the enemies. The addition of several mysterious passengers within her ship provides the reader with plenty of emotional excitement. Its a fresh new reading experience with the type of expert writing one expects from Jenny Schwartz! Bravo!
July 2, 2023
I’m invested from the previous series, but not sure how well this stands on its own - after building up such a large cast of characters, it’s jarring to have things focus on just one familiar character here, and the plot didn’t advance very far. Still, it was entertaining and kept my attention.
I think this doesn’t quite feel like a complete book, so we’ll see how I feel when the next two installments come out later this year. This all feels like set up, but potentially interesting setup? We’ll see.
I think this doesn’t quite feel like a complete book, so we’ll see how I feel when the next two installments come out later this year. This all feels like set up, but potentially interesting setup? We’ll see.
June 23, 2023
Excellent sci fi adventure
The worldbuilding is interesting, the story is fun and thrilling, and Dylan is too adorable. I laughed out loud, shed a few tears, and held my breath more than once. I wasn't sure I would like Cherry as a main character and narrator, but I was wrong. She has become an awesome character. And the big reveal at the end was definitely a surprise! I'm looking forward to book ( and Hugh possibly being less of an ass).
The worldbuilding is interesting, the story is fun and thrilling, and Dylan is too adorable. I laughed out loud, shed a few tears, and held my breath more than once. I wasn't sure I would like Cherry as a main character and narrator, but I was wrong. She has become an awesome character. And the big reveal at the end was definitely a surprise! I'm looking forward to book ( and Hugh possibly being less of an ass).
June 30, 2023
Can't wait for the next book to come out!!
I really enjoyed the previous series (I have read the series several times already) and was glad to see the story was continuing.
The characters are so realistic and fun to spend time with:) This book was a wonderful addition to the saga. I was a bit sorry not see more of previous characters but found it interesting to get to know Cherry better.
My only complaint is that I have to wait until September for the next book 😃
I really enjoyed the previous series (I have read the series several times already) and was glad to see the story was continuing.
The characters are so realistic and fun to spend time with:) This book was a wonderful addition to the saga. I was a bit sorry not see more of previous characters but found it interesting to get to know Cherry better.
My only complaint is that I have to wait until September for the next book 😃
August 28, 2023
Another awesome series from my fave author
I have enjoyed Cherry's personal growth experience. Her story has become very different from what I expected. Cherry is following the push from her own oracular feelings, in doing so she felt the need to rescue Hugh, and an unexpected outcome is rescuing Dylan as well. Naturally, because it's a Jenny Schwartz book much excitement follows. I'm waiting with baited breath for book 2!
I have enjoyed Cherry's personal growth experience. Her story has become very different from what I expected. Cherry is following the push from her own oracular feelings, in doing so she felt the need to rescue Hugh, and an unexpected outcome is rescuing Dylan as well. Naturally, because it's a Jenny Schwartz book much excitement follows. I'm waiting with baited breath for book 2!
October 26, 2023
Salvage, the first book of the Delphic Dame series, is an ebook I borrowed through Kindle Unlimited (KU). It was nice to see Cherry, a crossover and secondary character in a prior series, come into her own. Much of her personality was explained when the reader finds out she isn't an opportunist (my impression), but rather an oracle following her instincts. Solid writing and a fast-paced plot. I'm glad book two is out already.
December 17, 2023
action and adventure
Love the subtle messages for humanity. Including the destruction of prejudice. Superb job of a plot that keeps surprising me. Being an advisor reader I was starting to think all stories recently written were following the same exact outline, becoming, mundane, predictable, and boring. This had some twists that kept my attention. Definitely reading the next story. Thank you
Love the subtle messages for humanity. Including the destruction of prejudice. Superb job of a plot that keeps surprising me. Being an advisor reader I was starting to think all stories recently written were following the same exact outline, becoming, mundane, predictable, and boring. This had some twists that kept my attention. Definitely reading the next story. Thank you
March 18, 2024
Interesting
Author's writing style is not easy to navigate. She uses blanks for action and ?leaves the reader to interpret. Not un-navigable but difficult. There's nothing like empathy in the writing except the statement that they MCS are trying. Author simply jumps into action and out without proper background. Premise is enough to have me read the next in series but if they can't explain better, I won't finish
Author's writing style is not easy to navigate. She uses blanks for action and ?leaves the reader to interpret. Not un-navigable but difficult. There's nothing like empathy in the writing except the statement that they MCS are trying. Author simply jumps into action and out without proper background. Premise is enough to have me read the next in series but if they can't explain better, I won't finish
June 6, 2024
Clever.
I delayed starting this series because although I had enjoyed the previous one, this heroine didn’t excite me. However, I was happily surprised by this book. The heroine was brave and determined. She was intrepid yet considered all her actions.
The storyline is interesting, and the discussions between the characters were thought provoking.
The only thing missing for me was romance, but overall I enjoyed the book. Looking forward to the next.
I delayed starting this series because although I had enjoyed the previous one, this heroine didn’t excite me. However, I was happily surprised by this book. The heroine was brave and determined. She was intrepid yet considered all her actions.
The storyline is interesting, and the discussions between the characters were thought provoking.
The only thing missing for me was romance, but overall I enjoyed the book. Looking forward to the next.
June 24, 2023
I rarely rate books 5 stars - this was just excellent. A great scifi adventure with heart. I loved spending time with Cherry, Hugh, and Dylan and accompanying them on their mission. It was definitely a tense ride - but so enjoyable. I’m really excited for the next in the series. (This doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, but it does end with you wanting to know more!)
July 6, 2023
incredible continuation in this world!
Salvage is Cherry’s story. She is the half sister of Nora Devi from the previous series. This is what excellent adult space opera is about. Adult as in life choices and the responsibilities of adulthood in a scary universe. Can’t wait for the next book!
Salvage is Cherry’s story. She is the half sister of Nora Devi from the previous series. This is what excellent adult space opera is about. Adult as in life choices and the responsibilities of adulthood in a scary universe. Can’t wait for the next book!
July 17, 2023
Wonderful book by a favorite author
This is Cherrys story. She is older and wiser than her character in Noras book. However, Cherry is very much just beginning to discover who she is and what she will become. An adrenaline rush from start to finish my heart is still audibly beating....
This is Cherrys story. She is older and wiser than her character in Noras book. However, Cherry is very much just beginning to discover who she is and what she will become. An adrenaline rush from start to finish my heart is still audibly beating....
November 8, 2023
A compelling story and lot of fun to read, and now I want to be able to sit down with the author and discuss her thoughts on many topics. The insights she shared within the story were deep and well thought out. Jenny takes us into a universe where the biases and blind spots we all have are challenged and exposed against that fictional backdrop filled with political intrigue and danger.
June 24, 2023
The beginning of an odessey
Cherry has been keeping secrets. She's more than anyone thought and now she's on an adventure to save her family. Who and what she finds is only the tip of the iceberg.
You'll fall in love with her and with Dylan.
Cherry has been keeping secrets. She's more than anyone thought and now she's on an adventure to save her family. Who and what she finds is only the tip of the iceberg.
You'll fall in love with her and with Dylan.
July 8, 2023
Another great series
This series starts with a bang. I think it might turn out to be even more exciting than the previous series. You don't have to read the previous series to follow the story, but I recommend that series too. Can't wait for the next installment.
This series starts with a bang. I think it might turn out to be even more exciting than the previous series. You don't have to read the previous series to follow the story, but I recommend that series too. Can't wait for the next installment.
July 11, 2023
Great storyline
What a fun adventure and Cherry has grown up, thank goodness. A great romp with Dylan, a crab alien, a giant crab AI
Alien, a prince, and Cherry. Very entertaining and she has avoided great problems with her own unique talent.
What a fun adventure and Cherry has grown up, thank goodness. A great romp with Dylan, a crab alien, a giant crab AI
Alien, a prince, and Cherry. Very entertaining and she has avoided great problems with her own unique talent.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews