Spaceport: Sugar and Spice by Tuesday Morrigan
Publisher: Changeling Press
Length: Short (81 pgs)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Type: M/F, M/F/M, Menage, Multiple Partners
Rating: 3 cherries
Review by Lotus
Justifier. It’s her alias: the stronger side of Sugar Lawson. Until she goes up against Tarragon and Anise Spice, Sugar thinks Justifier, a determined assassin punishing those who take advantage of the weak, is the only side to her personality. But in a battle of wills, Sugar discovers the Spice brothers bring out the woman inside.
Hired to protect an unscrupulous mobster, the Spice brothers are determined to keep their client alive. But they never figured they would be protecting him from the galaxy’s avenger. Or that they wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off the dark, compelling beauty.
There’s nothing sweet about the woman named Sugar, and the Spice brothers are as cold as ice, but when the three get together, everything changes.
Throughout the Spaceport series we’ve met courtesans, drug addicts, sex gurus, space trash, and bounty hunters. In this episode we meet high-level assassins… and telepathic dogs. Yes, there are telepathic dogs, and they are awesome. The assassins are interesting too, with their own ethics, network, and codes. Morrigan makes this aspect of the Spacport world interesting and sympathetic, which is quite a feat when all of your protagonists are killers for hire. However, Morrigan’s style is not, by any stretch of the imagination, polished. Her tendency towards antiquated euphemisms like, “swords,” “sheaths,” and “channels” is comically distracting. However, she is a born storyteller, and it becomes easy to ignore this flaw as the plot moves along.
Sugar, on the surface, is fairly common science fiction stock. She’s gentically engineered, which means, that while she’s completely human, she’s also really really good at everything she does. In her role as Justifier, one of the most feared assassins in the galaxy, she is unbashedly badass, and a lot of fun to cheer for. While most of the time she stays true to character, there were a couple of moments where I was sure Morrigan had forgotten who she was writing about. I mean, I really can’t see Sugar being stupid enough to allow herself to be tied up by her mark, regardless of how much she wants him. I suppose, in all fairness, this could be considered evidence that she is, afterall, human, but she’s also the best at what she does, and so I don’t buy it.
And then we have the Spice men. Morrigan unashamedly follows her title theme by naming this poor lads Anise and Tarragon. Don’t worry, you notice less and less as you read on. Anise is definitely my kind of guy: cautious, sensual, and funny. Tarragon I could take or leave, but that’s possibly because he just oozes alpha male. What’s nice about them both is that they are each complete characters. However shallowly they are explored, they still give the impression of depth. The pitfall of many triangle romances is that two of the lovers will sometimes make up a whole for the third. This goes a long way toward explaining why the third cannot or will not choose between them, but it doesn’t make for a very satisfying romance. Morrigan avoids this trap like a pro.
Instead, Sugar and the Spices collide headlong, and each encounter is unique, and reveals aspects of the characters. Sugar has, in fact, a complete mini-romance with both of the brothers. Anise’s is much sweeter, probably due to the relative innocence of his feelings for Sugar, but Tarragon’s is not without its charm. There is some trouble with emotional choreography, however. While Sugar and either of the Spice brothers have real chemistry, this starts to break down when they come together. I think this may be because triad love affairs usually move in all directions, but what we have here is two brothers in love with the same woman. I, like Sugar, am not into incest, but the lack of pull between the heroes breaks the tension. It would almost have been better if the Spices were a married couple. Hey, it’s Spaceport Adana, it could happen!
The epilogue of
Sugar and Spice is also a little silly, wrapping up everything perhaps a little too neatly, and revealing information about the heroes that seems unnecessary, tacked-on, and incongruous to the setting. It’s always unfair when a decent novella is ruined by a haphazard epilogue, but you can always skip it. That aside, this is a solid bit of assassin vs. assassin erotica, with characters you cheer for and sex that is both hot and emotionally charged.
