The Curse of the Sotkari Ta

As you all might remember from my review of Whitney Hill’s The Shadows of Otherside, I have been a freelance editor and beta reader for a few years. In this piece, I wanted to introduce you to another of the fantastic indie authors I’ve worked with and the book series that she’s brought into this world: Maria A. Perez (a new writer to Vocal) and her romantic space opera trilogy The Curse of the Sotkari Ta.

The Curse of the Sotkari Ta follows Mina, an Earth mother who gets abducted by the Lostai aliens for her dormant Sotkari Ta genes, which give her powerful telekinetic and telepathic abilities. Their plan is to make her a super soldier and breeder—something that neither she nor her preselected alien mate, Montor, wants. They must set aside their instant dislike of each other to secure her escape if they wish to avoid the Lostai’s nefarious plans for them, but doing so will require working closely together…too closely. And in close quarters, anything can happen, especially with the Sotkari Ta genes driving their desire to mate.

Along with The Shadows of Otherside, The Curse of the Sotkari Ta has been one of my favorite projects to work on consistently. The characters are diverse and well-rounded, particularly the main characters, Mina and Montor. Mina arrives at the Lostai science station your average mother, but she becomes a kick-ass representative of what a woman her age can be: a super soldier, a sex symbol, and, yes, a mother. Montor, meanwhile, starts off a gruff and aggressive super soldier with a kill-or-be-killed mentality but evolves into a sweet, poetic, sexy alien who happens to be a walking, talking superweapon. They are an unlikely pair, and yet you find yourself rooting for them every step of the way—even when both on-page and off-page competitors for Mina’s affections appear.

The Curse of the Sotkari Ta is not just a love story, though. It is full-on space-age action. From hand-to-hand combat to intergalactic spaceship battles, these books have a wide variety of action to satisfy any space opera fanatic. (Given that Maria herself is a Trekkie, there’s really no surprise there). The action is not the only thing that is sci-fi in this story. Maria has delved deep into the development of new technologies, planets, and cultures when creating her universe. For those of you who prefer intergalactic laws to intergalactic space battles, there are plenty of those as well.

These stories are not just about steamy sex scenes, high-action space battles, and new-fangled technology. They are about the human (or, rather, alien) connection, the emotion of love (romantic, familial, platonic) and how it can still exist across galaxies, the ethics of colonization, and much more. The beauty of these books is that the themes are not forced. They are organically woven into the story, so that the reader can find them for themselves.

I highly recommend these books, not just as their editor, but as a huge fan. If you are a sci-fi fan or even a romance fan, I think that these books are right for you. The descriptions are well done, the characters—both human and alien—are diverse and well developed, and the plot is solid, even across three books. Do me a favor and just check the books out for yourself; I promise that you won’t regret it.

And if you do like them, you will definitely want to check out the prequel book, Song of the Caged Warrior, which follows Montor’s adventures before meeting Mina, and Montor’s poetry book, Montor’s Secret Stash of Poems.

The following are the Amazon link to the first book in The Curse of the Sotkari Ta trilogy as well as Maria A. Perez’s Vocal page.