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Reviewed by Anne Boling for Readers' Favorite
The Obsidian Seed is the sequel to Tigra. In the first book, Jeena escapes a POW camp. She ends up on planet Ararat where she adopts a tigra cub, Samson. She is surprised to learn that the tigra cub is intelligent, talks, and reads. Soon Jeena is learning from the cub. The cub leads his people to freedom.
The Obsidian Seed picks up the story nine years later. Samson is leading his people in regaining their culture and civilization. The citizens look up to Jeena. They respect her as their great warrior. She is under pressure to take the role of High Priestess. Jeena feels uneasy, but she is not sure why.
Jeena discovers that Ararat is now part of the Coalition Empire. “The Union has just sold us into slavery.” “The Coalition is an absolutist regime. They initiated and fought a brutal war for almost a century in an attempt to wield control over all of mankind…There have been rumors for years of their experiments in fusing man and machine.”
An old enemy returned to betray Jeena and the citizens of Ararat. Things look hopeless but, freedom is worth the fight. “The people know what they have is special, and will gladly give up their lives to keep it.”
It has been quite sometimes since I read a science fiction book that gripped me the way this one does. I read all 354 pages in one sitting. R.J. Leahy returns readers to the world he created. In the previous book, I found a lesson on tolerance. The lesson in this book is the value of liberty. When the Coalition claims Ararat, the citizens could give up. The Tigra’s could return to the wilderness. However, they found freedom was worth the fight. Perhaps you have to taste slavery to appreciate freedom. Leahy has a talent for developing characters with depth. I was especially fond of the Tigras. Their loyalty is admirable. The Obsidian Seed is action-packed. Leahy takes the reader into battle as a small group of unlikely rebels battle the Coalition. Action, intrigue, conspiracy, politics, and uncommon romance make this book a must-read. Leahy left the possibility of another book in this series. I can hardly wait to see what the future holds for Samson and Jeena.
