Knight of a Trillion Stars

By Dara Joy, 1995 (1998 reissue), Futuristic Romance
Love Spell, ISBN #0505522659
First in a proposed 9-book series, followed by Rejar and Mine to Take

Sensuality: Burning

Knight of a Trillion Stars launched Dara Joy as one of the more sensual (to put it mildly!) romance writers around. It is followed by Rejar and you really ought to read them both in order to get the full effect.

Deana Jones is having a horrible day. She’s just been fired, and when she goes to the parking lot to leave, her car is blocked in. To kill some time, she goes to a junk shop and buys a pretty torque necklace that looks like silver. When she is at home polishing the necklace, a man appears in her living room. The jewel in Deana’s necklace is the Shimalee, a phasing stone that can summon beings from other dimensions. It has summoned Lorgin ta’al Krue from the planet Aviara. Lorgin is a knight of the Charl and mystic of the fourth degree. Lorgin is a true Dara Joy hero, so gorgeous and sexy that he’ll melt your bones. Luckily, Deana is a science fiction fan and adjusts fairly quickly to having an alien in her house. She and Lorgin go to the mall and she shepherds him around Earth artifacts that totally confuse him like hamburgers, microwave ovens and blowdryers. Deana takes Lorgin to a science fiction convention and while they are there, he performs a ritual with her that she thinks is just a skit. In reality it’s an Aviaran marriage ceremony.

Lorgin and Deana phase out of Earth and materialize on a rim planet where they meet Yaniff, a wizard who is Lorgin’s mentor and Lorgin’s brother Rejar, who is a Familiar. Rejar is sexy as all get out, can transform into a cat and lives for lovemaking. “Every time I see your brother he is adjusting his clothes.” “That is because he takes them off so often”. Yaniff, Rejar and Lorgin are on a quest to find one of the phasing stones that has fallen into the hands of a madman who could use it to destroy the universe. Of course, Deana goes along with them.

Since Lorgin has married Deana, he wastes no time in getting down to the business at hand. Rejar may be the sexy Familiar, but Lorgin is definitely no slouch! The love scenes are scorching hot and very inventive. Deana and Lorgin make love in all kinds of unusual places including one instance where they make love while riding on the back of a prautau beast. Deana copes rather well with her alien environment but she doesn’t understand a lot of what’s going on and commits a few blunders. Once when she is bored she tries to make pottery out of some smelly clay she finds (don’t ask what it is!)

The travelers finally trace the missing stone to Traed, another sexy Dara Joy hero. Traed’s father is quite mad and has the stone. There is a big confrontation to try and stop him.

Knight of a Trillion Stars is not overflowing with originality. The characters fight with light sabers and there is one scene that is very much like the cantina scene in Star Wars. But the book has tremendous energy and is fast paced and often is very funny. The characters have a lot of charm, especially Yaniff and Rejar; and as for the love scenes – hot does not begin to describe them! Dara Joy has written a straight historical novel, Tonight or Never but I think she does her best work with sci-fi romances like Knight of a Trillion Stars and Rejar. So Dara, when are we going to get Traed’s story?

— Ellen Micheletti

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Find links to Dara Joy interviews and reviews from this Desert Isle Keeper Review of RejarIf you have any comments about this reviewIf you are interested in writing a review of your all-time favorite romance