This one ended up as 3-1/2 stars. It finished much stronger than it started. I liked the whole set up. She's a Rim rat who scrounges for artifacts to sell to help support her family. She finds an intact vase which turns out to be a djinn's bottle/prison.

Here's where it was not so good. As soon as he is accidently released from his bottle, he sees her and gets her off while she's asleep. She wakes up and thinks she was dreaming so she uses her "pleasure wand" to get herself off while he watches unbeknownst to her. Then he materializes again and they have sex. Then they chat and wander around the ship and they have sex again. So we're up to about page 60. The problem is that you don't know the characters yet and they don't know each other so the sex is pretty meaningless and gets in the way of the story. And I'm sorry but there is nothing sexy or romantic about someone spying on someone else masterbating. That just gave me an icky feeling. And to top it all off, the sex scenes were pretty darn pedestrian. Honestly it felt like the author was told to "put some sex in."

After she accepts that he is in fact a djinn and determines to free him and they go to the inner worlds to find a 'cure', the story picks up. The sci fi world building is really pretty good. There are plenty of realistic descriptions of ships and a pretty clear system of ship travel and traffic rules and descriptions of ships approaching planets and space stations. The universe seems well thought out and full. The side story of her returning to the planet of her birth was pretty well done. There was a bit about pirates trying twice to capture her that was left hanging a bit. You never found out definitely why or who wanted her.

There is still some sex in the second half of the book but now you know the characters so you're more interested and also the sex is pertinent to the plot.

Both the hero, Romir, and the heroine, Asrial, were well developed characters and I like Romir especially. He was noble and self sacrificing. Asrial was very capable and caring.

All in all, except for the superfluous sex in the beginning, a well done science fiction romance. ( )