Won this from a blog hop from the lovely Anne Tenino. Really looking forward to reading this book!

Absolutely LOVED the premise of the book! Anne does a wonderful job at both world and character building. The dialogue flowed beautifully and the internal (sometimes not so much if James is near, hehe) struggles of the characters are sincere and believable. Really looking forward to more in this series! ( )

I read this before I added everything on Goodreads and I enjoyed it so much then. In fact I found this in a map called 'faves'.

It did not age well. Upon rereading I found so many things that bothered me... Most of all the horse. Wtf happened to the horse?!

Plus the end scenes were a bit too dramatic for no reason and icky for a very good reason. It brought down a whole star. ( )

In a dystopian future where the United States has split into Red States and Blue States, each faction has embraced the more extreme views of their respective ideology. Which is why Agent Matt Tennimore finds himself tasked with not only bringing home special agents who've been stranded in the Confederated Red States but also retrieving gay CRS citizens who are petitioning for asylum. It's not an easy task, but it's one he is proud to do. And generally everything goes fairly well. Until Matt finds his next retrieval is James Ayala, his apparently straight and homophobic high school crush. But Matt's feelings aside, there's something different about James--and apparently the CRS have some idea of this, so they're not going to make their journey home easy. There's a clear chance, in fact, they may not make it at all.

Nothing like a life-threatening journey to bring an unlikely pair together, no? There are some aspects of the story that seem a little thin in terms of the world-building, but the overall plot is interesting enough (as are the characters), that I was able and willing to overlook it and enjoy the book. I'm curious to pick up the next book in the series and give it a read... ( )

I was a bit apprehensive about reading this book because I tend not to be a huge fan of sci-fi. I am glad I went with the recommendation to read it. It was very well written. I thought it was a very cool concept breaking the US into red and blue states (though I hope it never turns that way in real life!). I do feel that Matt jumped to forgive and forget very quickly but I suppose being with someone 24-7 in a life threatening situation could do that. I did like these guys together. They really seemed to complement each other. I enjoyed this book very much. ( )

As a voracious consumer of sci-fi from way back, this book helped to assuage my persistent craving. The premise was good, the characters were believably flawed and real, and their relationship nuanced. All good things. I would have even welcomed a slightly more in-depth comparison between the Red and Blue ideologies... nothing too heavy and unwieldy but perhaps showing how the seeds of today's political environment evolved into this.

The thing that didn't work for me? Gah...the acronyms!

I'm looking forward to the continuation of this series. I need to find out how James' implant continues to develop and I want to read Laslo & Logan's story...and Miz! Poor Miz is till swimming the river. And even Beni... but not too much of her...can only handle small doses! ;) ( )