The Affinity Trap: Book One of the Structure Series

Part postapocalyptic space opera and part male power fantasy, British author Sketchley's debut boasts a striking cover: a beautiful bare-bellied female brandishing a futuristic gun beside a muscle-bound male in a torn uniform hefting a much bigger gun. Former military intelligence officer Alexander Delgado has little respect for his ruthless commander, Gen. William Myson, whose Structure government rules 24th-century Earth. While illegally selling advanced technology to the alien Sinz, Myson forged an alliance with the triple-gendered Seriatt by fathering a child with "conosq " Vourniass Lycern, assigned child bearer to the Seriattic Royal Household. After Lycern runs away to the planet Veshc, home of the cultlike Affinity Group, Myson orders Delgado to retrieve her. Murdering his way to Lycern's side, Delgado finds her "undoubtedly the most enigmatic, mysterious creature he had ever encountered." After sex, however, he discovers he's infected with Lycern's pheromones and thus bound to her emotionally and physically. Sketchley's solid writing drives this plot-based story, but a lack of detailed world-building keeps it grounded to its '70s action-adventure foundations. Agents, Joshua Bilmes at the Jabberwocky Literary Agency and John Parker at MBA Literary Agents . (Sept.)