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An Accidental Goddess (Bantam Spectra) [Mass Market Paperback]

Linnea Sinclair (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Bantam Spectra December 27, 2005
Raheiran Special Forces captain Gillaine Davré has just woken up in some unknown space way station, wondering where the last three hundred years have gone. The last thing she remembers is her ship being attacked. Now it seems that while she was time-traveling, she was ordained a goddess…. Gillaine’s only hope of survival rests with dangerously seductive Admiral Mack Makarian, who suspects her of being a smuggler—or worse. But he can’t begin to imagine the full extent of it. For Gillaine is now Lady Kiasidira, holy icon to countless believers, including Mack—a man who inspires feelings in her that are far from saintly…feelings she knows are mutual. But when their flirtation is interrupted by a treacherous enemy from the past, Gillaine’s secret—and secret desires—could destroy them both….

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About the Author

Winner of the prestigious national book award, the RITA, science fiction romance author Linnea Sinclair has become a name synonymous for high-action, emotionally intense, character-driven novels. Reviewers note that Sinclair’s novels “have the wow-factor in spades,” earning her accolades from both the science fiction and romance communities. A former news reporter and retired private detective, Sinclair resides in Naples, Florida with her husband, Robert Bernadino, and their two thoroughly spoiled cats.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

It wasn't the first time Gillie had hazily regained consciousness flat on her back in sick bay, feeling stiff and out of sorts. And unable to account for a missing two or three hours. Pub-crawling did have its side effects.

But it was the first time she'd been unable to account for a missing two or three hundred years. Not even a week of pub-crawling could explain that.

Three hundred forty-two years, sixteen hours, Simon's voice stated clearly in her mind. If you want to be absolutely accurate.

She didn't. Her math skills had never been her strong point. And three hundred years was a close enough estimate to cause her stomach to do flip-flops in a way a bottle of Devil's Breath never had.
The possibility that she'd died flitted across her mind--though death wouldn't have thrown her inexplicably into the future. Even so, she thought it prudent to pull her essence out of her physical self and make a cursory examination of her own body on the diag table. By all appearances, she was still short, blond, and very much alive. The readout on the medistat confirmed the last part of her hastily conducted diagnosis. It detailed a few bumps and bruises as well as notations on a mild concussion, no doubt the source of her blistering headache.

A headache that wasn't the least bit helped by whatever heathen concoction was being pumped into her system through the round med-broche clamped to her wrist. Med-broches! Raheiran technology rarely used such invasive things. She longed to alter its feed rate but knew her mental tinkering would likely set off some alarm. She'd almost tripped a few when she'd awakened ten minutes ago, groggy and achy, then tried to spike into this sick bay's systems.

Impatience invariably leads to sloppy work, Simon had chastised.

Sloppy work, a bitch of a headache, and a reality that suddenly did not make sense.

How in the Seven Hells had she ended up three hundred years from her last conscious moment, flat on her back in some unknown space station's sick bay? With Simon in a similar state of disarray a few decks below.

The Fav'lhir.

Ah, yes. Small matter of a large warship intent on her destruction. Obviously, the Fav hadn't succeeded. Though something had happened.

They're vicious and powerful, Simon, but they don't have time-travel capabilities. Neither do we. Someone or something else pulled us here. Wherever here was. That much she ought to find out.

She stepped away from her unconscious body on the diag table, peeked around the corner of the small room. Felt foolish and could hear Simon's wry chuckle. No one could see her.

At least, no one other than Simon, who, from his tone, was very aware she'd pulled out of her self to explore her surroundings. Have a care, My Lady. You were injured.

We've more serious things to consider than my few aches and pains. There were two other patients in the sick bay in much worse shape than she was. She didn't know them; there'd been no one on her ship when the Fav had attacked other than Simon and herself. The girl on the diag bed was too young to be part of the squadron she'd worked with in the Khalaran Fleet. Almost automatically, Gillie touched their essences, sending healing energy as she walked by. Then she sidestepped quickly, and unnecessarily, as a thin man in a blue lab coat hurried past and into the corridor.

She followed him and for the next fifteen minutes was thoroughly astounded, and more than a little disconcerted, by what she saw.

Wide corridors were filled with people in various modes of dress, from the utilitarian freighter-crew shipsuits to more exotic costumes with flowing skirts and elaborate fringed shawls. She noted the familiar range of skin tones--from the dusky to the pale--and hair colors--mostly browns and blacks but a few bright reds and light blonds--and heard all three Khalaran dialects. A few languages were harder to identify. Rim-world tongues, most likely, clipped and rapid in their sound.

She raised her eyebrows at the antigrav pallets trailing behind a group of dockworkers, surprised by the pallets' advanced configuration. Raised her eyebrows further at the state-of-the-art holovid news kiosks and station diagrams near the lift banks. Those she studied carefully, listening to the chatter around her; tech talk about scanner arrays and enviro grids. That matched what she saw on the diagram suspended three-dimensionally out from the bulkhead.

The Khalaran Confederation, with her assistance, had just been developing the technology to create a deep-space station the likes of which she looked at now. At least, they had been a day ago.
Correction, three hundred and forty-two years ago.

Yet it wasn't this jump in technology that bothered her. Nor this space structure bristling with unexpected weapons and sensors and databanks. Nor her headache. Or the stiffness in her left shoulder, the result of her sudden collision with the bulkhead when the Fav'lhir ship had exploded a little too close for comfort off her starboard side.

Even the unexplained missing three hundred some- odd years failed to bother her. Or the fact that, in those three hundred some-odd years, there'd been no other Raheiran advisers in this sector. Simon had checked station security logs.

Given her people's minimal-intervention policy, that was one of the few things that made sense.
No, none of those things bothered her at all.

What really bothered her was something she heard in the corridor chatter as she continued her brief, hurried tour. Something she viewed on the news kiosks and station diagrams. And finally, something she saw as she stood before the temple's double-doored entrance, shaking her head in disbelief.

What really bothered Gillaine Davre was that during her three-hundred-some-odd-year absence, the damned Khalar had gone on a shrine-building kick and made her into a deity.
Simon? There's a huge holograph of me in this temple! But I'm not--

It appears they think you are, My Lady.

Oh, hell. Oh, damn. This wasn't a minor error in alien protocol. This was a mistake. A big one that encompassed an entire culture. Gillie shuddered at the ramifications. We have to get away from here. Now.

Now is not possible, I fear.

When?

Three weeks, perhaps less. There's much damage to repair.

There'll be worse damage if they find out who I am!

Calm down, Gillaine, Kiasidira. There's no reason they should. That holo's fairly old--you're in formal dress in it and your hair's quite different. And I'm finding no references to you as Captain Davre.

Only as the Kiasidira. However, just to be on the safe
side, I do recommend avoiding contact with any Raheiran crystal and, of course, any itinerant witches or sorcerers.

The Khalar aren't mageline.

Then we'll have no problems, will we? Just be your usual charming self for the next few weeks and no one will know a goddess walks among them.

I'm not a goddess!

Nor are you seriously injured. Therefore, if you don't return to your self rather quickly, that medical officer trying to wake you may start running tests you won't like.


Rynan Makarian frowned at the irritatingly incomplete data on his deskscreen and knew it was all his fault. It had been four months since he'd been given the command to establish a Fleet presence on Cirrus One and secure it for the Project. Station systems were still far from optimal. Cirrus One was far from optimal; the station had passed its prime well over eighty-five years ago.

"Give it to Mack. He'll fix it," someone in Fleet defense and logistics no doubt had said.

It wouldn't have been the first time it was said either. He knew his reputation for unerring efficiency preceded him. It had bestowed upon him the rank of admiral in the Khalaran's newly organized Fifth Fleet at the unlikely age of forty-three. And bestowed upon him the derelict monstrosity known as Cirrus One, to rehab into a usable headquarters for the Fifth. And, within the next four months, to have that same derelict monstrosity serve as something even more important than that: as the primary terminus for the critical Rim Gate Project.

That project, more than Cirrus One, had drawn him off the bridge of the Vedritor and ensconced him behind a desk--albeit a well-dented, slightly rusted one.

But it was Cirrus One that took up the majority of his time. And time was the one thing he lacked. He had little more than a month in which to get his HQ fully operational and secure. Missing supplies, incomplete data, and delayed support staff notwithstanding.

He rested his elbows on that same battered desk and leaned his forehead against his fists. Damn.
There was a wisdom in imperfection. He saw that clearly now. What was that adage that Lady Kiasidira's priests used to comfort the misguided? We are all in a continuing process of growth. There are no mistakes. Only lessons.

Cirrus One was one hell of a lesson.

Had he allowed himself a few mistakes in his career, he might well still be on the bridge of the Vedritor. A mere senior captain, not an admiral with an impeccable reputation to solve the unsolvable. To rectify the--

His intercom trilled. He tapped the flashing icon, leaned back in his chair. "Makarian."

A familiar thin, dusky-toned face wavered, solidified on the screen. Doc Janek, his chief medical officer. His blue lab coat bore the Vedritor's insignia. Like many things Mack had requested, Fifth Fleet uniforms were still "in transit." As supply routes went, Cirrus One wasn't in the middle of nowhere. It was just the last exit before it.

"Admiral, you asked to be notified. Our visitor from that damaged freighter's awake."

Yet one more thing to plague his schedule with delays: an unauthorized ship with an unconscious pilot. An image flashed through Mack's mind: a pale-haired young woman in nondescript spacer grays lying awkwardly on the decking, just behind the pilot's chair. E...

Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Bantam (December 27, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0553587994
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553587999
  • Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #681,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Average Customer Review
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A hybrid Romance that works both ways., February 23, 2006
By 
Mfitz... "Mfitz..." (Cincinnati, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: An Accidental Goddess (Bantam Spectra) (Mass Market Paperback)
It's about time they got someone writing this sort of hybrid story who understands both parent genera. Most of the books out there sold as futuristic, or SF, romances are so bad that I'm embarrassed for the authors. They are lame romances, horrid SF, and something of an insult to the readers they are marketed toward.

Ms. Sinclair's work does not fall into that category. This book works as a Romance and a Space Opera, although the SF setting does not work quite as well as the settings in Finder's Keepers or Gabriel's Ghost. Sure this is brain candy, but it's really good brain candy, a fun read and a wonderful escape from the stress of the real world.

I've put Sinclair on my A list of writers. I'm looking forward to reading her future works.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Sci Fi Romance!, March 4, 2006
By 
Silmarwen (Huntington Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   
This review is from: An Accidental Goddess (Bantam Spectra) (Mass Market Paperback)
Captain Gillaine Davre of the Raheiran Special Forces, the Kiasidira, had just barely escaped the Fav'lhir attack by traveling through the Rift. The Fav'lhir followed her and were destroyed, decimating the Fav'lhir's mageline or line of sorcerers. So when she woke up in a sick bay, she wasn't too surprised. After all, she did get a pretty nasty bump on her head. However, Gillie quickly discovers that she is 342 years in the future. Somehow the conflict between her ship and the Fav'lhir projected her into the future. And, even worse, the Khalarans, the people she was protecting, have made her a goddess! Gillie knows that she needs to keep her head down, repair her ship and beat it out of there before anyone discovers who she is, but Admiral Rynan Makarian already seems a little too interested...

Admiral Rynan "Make It Right" Makarian, Mack to his friends, is the youngest and newest Admiral in the Khalaran Fleet. His reputation for perfection and excellent track record land him on Cirrus One, the preliminary project for the Rim Gate Project, or a gate that will link the remote corner of the galaxy with the rest of the Khalaran Confederation. Everything that could go wrong seems to, from the civilians refusing to cooperate with the Fleet personnel, the magefather having delusions of grandeur - and the dratted parrots that no one can seem to get rid of! The last thing he needs is the beautiful Gillie, whom he mistakenly assumes is a smuggler, distracting him from his duties.

Mack first hangs around Gillie because he is suspicious of her, but quickly falls in love with her. When Mack proposes to Gillie after she has been on Cirrus One for a week, Gillie is shocked - but very, very tempted. For the first time in her life, Gillie starts to imagine what it would be like to be just plain old Gillie - not the Kiasidira, not a Raheiran sorceress, but just a woman who loves a man. For a short time, it seems that Gillie's dream will come true, but then Gillie discovers that the magefather is Melandan, the ancient enemy of the Khalarans. When Carrick Blass, a mageline sorcerer of the Melandan people arrives on board Cirrus One, Gillie knows she has to make a choice - protect the Khalarans, as she swore an oath to do and risk losing Mack's love or to let the Khalarans be destroyed, which is no choice at all...

An Accidental Goddess is the far future sequel to Wintertide, Baker's excellent fantasy novel and is just as entertaining. Gillie was a great character and I could totally empathize with her tough decisions. If she revealed who she truly was, the Kiasidira, she would disrupt centuries of religious worship in the Khalaran culture and knew that the people would never look at her the same. Mack was a great hero, very intelligent and able to figure out a lot of Gillie's history on his own, but not really wanting to believe what he found out. Mack's crew were also wonderful characters, as was Simon, Gillie's sentient computer/ship who was one of my favorite characters - I would love to see him in a story of his own! Anyway, the characters were fabulous and well developed, even the wretched villains, and the setting was great. I felt that the story had a good sense of history (because I read Wintertide first, I understood a lot of the religious connotations better, but it is not necessary to read Wintertide first) and a very developed world with all aspects of life covered - food, healing, religion, military, politics, etc. The cost is a bit steep for Megan Baker's books, but I can assure you that they are well worth the cost! (If you want a cheaper copy, look to buy them in ebook format.)
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Highly entertaining romantic nonsense in space, July 30, 2006
By 
This review is from: An Accidental Goddess (Bantam Spectra) (Mass Market Paperback)
An Accidental Goddess is not going to win either Hugo and Nebula awards for the SF content or the equivalent prizes as a romance. But it is good fun.

Captain Gillaine Davre, or "Gillie", is a military advisor from a highly advanced race called the Raheirans to their slightly less advanced allies, the Khalarans. The Khalarans are themselves advanced enough to operate interstellar space ships and space stations, but both the Raheirans and a hostile race, the evil Fav'lhir, are so advanced that some of their abiliites seem like magic to the Khalarans.

The book makes frequent reference to magic: Linnea Sinclair appears to have deliberately allowed the reader to interpret these references in either of two different ways. You can take them literally, or assume that Raheiran technology is so advanced that it meets the saying by Arthur C Clarke that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

At the start of the book, Gillie wakes up in the sickbay of her ship after a battle in which they have destroyed an enemy vessel belonging to the Fav'lhir.

It is a nasty shock to find that a side effect of the battle has been to throw her 342 years and 18 hours into the future. It is a much worse one to discover that during that interval the Khalarans have started worshipping her as a Goddess.

Gillie promply gets herself into all kinds of amusing scrapes. On the one hand she has no desire to be regarded as a deity, which she certainly is not, on the other she doesn't want to start trampling on other people's religious beliefs and risk destabilising Khalaran society by doing so. To complicate matters further, she becomes romanticaly involved with the Admiral commanding the Khalaran fleet in the sector - a man who worships her in a rather different way than she would have preferred.

There are all manner of logical inconsistencies in the book and things which are never explained. For instance, it is not clear why the Raheiran central government appears to have done nothing to replace their envoy to a key sector of the galaxy who was missing and presumed killed in action for 342 years. Nevertheless it is easy to forget about these issues while you are reading the book and just enjoy it.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
lady goddess, accidental goddess, prime hostess, linnea sinclair, mage cabinet, rim traders, hundred forty two years, comm set, ward stones, palm pad, crystal section, repair bay, comm link
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Cirrus One, Lady Kiasidira, Magefather Rigo, Admiral Makarian, Captain Gillaine, Fifth Fleet, Johnna Hebbs, Carrick Blass, Fitch Tobias, Rynan Makarian, Honora Trelmont, Rim Gate Project, Lady Gillaine, Ops Main, Doc Janek, Gillaine Kiasidira Ciran Rothalla, Sacred Symbols, Port Armin, Fourth Fleet, Fifth Quarter, Faydra Trace, Traakhal One, Code Six, Carrickal Grel, Admiral Mack
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