Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

This a crazy read, with all sorts of weird aliens and a madcap story that reads like a comic
book.

The plot jumps from one disaster to the next with no drop in the pace.

Great fun.

This was covered in a print edition or podcast.. We can check the archives if you need more information.

Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes is a fun sci-fi romp through space, featuring psychic cats. The story is led by Captain Eva Innocente of La Sirena Negra, who has to compromise herself and her morals in order to save her estranged sister. It is an easy read, fast paced and rather compelling – although the aforementioned psychic cats, which are a major selling point of the book (they are mentioned on the cover!) really would need to play a bigger role in the story for my taste. They only pop up a few times and it is really Eva’s story and not theirs. And that is definitely a large part of why it has taken me so long to finish this – I’ve started it probably three times on kindle until a friend passing on a physical copy gave me the kick up the ass to finally finish it. I think I’m intrigued enough to read book two for the heck of it, just because it’s good space opera escapism, but they are not books I think I will be going around and hugely recommending to anyone as standout favourites.

I think science fiction is in an interesting place at the moment - certain approaches are getting stale and with new voices like Becky Chambers, Arkady Martine and Tade Thompson the genre is is being pushed into a different direction. This makes books coming out now in an interesting place of standing between old and new worlds. Reading Valerie Valdes’ charming Chilling Effect I found a promising start to a new series but one where I enjoyed some aspects more than others.

We meet Captain Eva Innocente trying to find all her awol psychic cats on her spaceship the La Sirena Negra. Her mission though fails and they need another job stat but before that search can start she gets a message from a shadowy crime syndicate known as The Fridge - they have her sister and she must do everything they ask or she will never be seen again. Keeping this from her crew she ends up on a variety of strange and often dangerous missions with curious goals until she reaches the point where she decides to fight back.

This is a book where I loved the emotional side of the book far more than the main plotline. Eva is a refreshing character mid-thirties, sarcastic and trying to go straight in a universe where crooked can pay more. She has a fascinating crew of people who probably have finally found a place they fit in - her best friend Pink who knows Eva less than safe backstory; Leroy a supersoldier that needs the quiet life; Min who eels happier living in her ship’s systems than her actual body and most puzzling to Eva her engineer Vakar who she gets on well with but is still puzzled by the strange sequence of pheromone smells she encounters whenever they meet. Its an intriguing found family of a crew and spending time with them and watching how Eva interacts or forgets to was a delight with lots of potential for exploring how the crew got to the same place.

The universe Valdes paints is also fun. Humanity is not the centre of all things its a mix of strange and bizarre - a touch Adams and Chambers with alien warlords who will blow up space stations if denied a date or alien dinosaurs who have soap opera style love lives. Its vivid and energetic and again a place I’d love to explore more.

The downside for me was The Fridge plot it didn’t quite gel with the wider story and I felt didn’t add enough to the main crew storyline. Evil group doing things for evil purposes feels old hat and while there are some interesting twists and turns it never came alive and more often felt in the way of getting to know the crew. Happily I hope now the scene setting is in place for future stories we can allow the crew to breathe and get to explore them even more.

This feels a very promising debut and I am looking to soon reading the next in the series (which feels like it could have legs) but it feels a series that needs to learn to breathe more but I think fans of slice of life SF will really enjoy this.

3.5 stars
First let me say if you came here because it says Psychic Cats on the cover you are going to be disappointed. While the cute, with hypnotising abilities, the kitties play a very minor role in the plot. Serving more of a role of fun clutter occasionally referred to than having any actual purpose. So if you are only interested in the cats you will probably loose interest in this fairly quickly, which is sad as this really is a fun romp through space and great if you are looking for a lighter read that will make you chuckle.

I found Chilling Effect to be a really entertaining and lighthearted space opera. It is filled with tropes and twists on those tropes in the best way. We follow a slightly maverick crew of a run down small freighter just trying to eek out a living on the fringes of space with all the banter that produces. When of course things go wrong and our Captain is forced to choose between rescuing Family or putting her found family of her crew in danger. These dangerous missions get more and more bizarre as we find ourselves on a whole slew of different planets or space stations.

The world is really inventive. As this isn't trying to be hard sci-fi in any way it fully embraced the silly. It was a little bit campy and little bit Dr who-ish in the multitude or weird and wonderful aliens we got to encounter, just with more swearing. This to me was the most fun about the book. As it was broken down into lots of mini missions we really got a feel of a vast universe Valdes had created. It was colourful, cheesey and humourous with tongue and cheek swipes at the various tropes and character archetypes. It made me smile and I enjoyed it.

The characters also had strong personalities that were likeable and fun to read about. Vakar the engineer was super interesting and how he communicated through smell. Pink, was a great ships medic, not taking anyone's shit but also caring deeply about them all, just as ready to jump into battle. I really liked that there was a heavy focus on the mental health of the crew from Pink. Eva our MC definitely had a growth arc though I wouldn't call it revolutionary. Leroy, the muscle on board, having PTSD was really interesting and I think well handled when it was spoken about but I do feel it could have been a more explored topic, especially when they find themselves in trouble again. I do wish we got a bit more from the rest of the crew at times. It would have been nice to get more depth into the back stories. Places and events would come up in the dialogue but we would never actually find out about them and what they meant in terms of the characters past. They were still a fun mix of characters and a lot of the secondary characters really added to the atmosphere and banter.

We do have a bad case of multiple ending syndrome where we came to several good closure points but then one more mission happened to the point the actual end of the book was a little meh. It kind of just left us back were we started but with a little character growth on Eva's part and that was a little disappointing.

I think what I liked about this book is it reminded me of a lot of things, i enjoy. It was very much like the St Mary's Chronicles by Jodi Taylor in its structure of little mini missions, the cast being complete disaster magnets and the banter. It also had real Mass Effect vibes to it. Like what if Fem-Shep never joined the Allience and instead was a cargo hauler?, all the way down to the News reels in the Elevator scenes. This kinda made me giggle, its fun and playful Sci-fi and I enjoyed it. I just wish it was a little stronger with its overarching plot and ending. Overall, this is just fun and light-hearted and I think worth the read.

Yes to space operas, yes to planets and aliens and emotional growth and humor when the overall story is actually pretty dark. Overall it was a very fun surprise, and I'm definitely going to continue this series!

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC in honest for my honest review.

This book had me sold immediately when I read it was a rootin’ tootin’ space adventure, has a kick ass heroine and psychic cats, this was everything I needed!

When I first started it I had just come off a major book binge and then the COVID-19 drama started and I had a lifestyle change. This affected me when I was trying to get into the book (which is not the books fault) however once I did, I did start to enjoy it.

The story moves fast and from location to location so it is hard to keep up with in that sense, especially when it is not a world we know. We’re it real life cities I don’t think it would have been such an issue but when there are multiple worlds and cultures it does make it harder to follow and be invested in.

I enjoyed the fact that there were more female than male characters but I did feel like we were not given a lot of in depth information on them or their characteristics. One character is even written out halfway through and never mentioned again.

I did feel that the Eva went from fight to fight with no real sense of recognising her mistakes and avoiding them. A lot of it was fight, lucky escape, fight, shooty shoot shoot, fight, lucky escape. And at that pace it made me as the reader wonder what was going on half the time.

Would I read this again? Probably not. But did I enjoy what I did read? Yes!

I’d given it 3/5!

This book gave me major Firefly flashbacks. The main character has quite an attitude, she often can't help casting herself in the role of hero, and she travels around the galaxy on a clunky old spaceship with a ragtag crew who've slowly become more like a family to her than her actual family.

Captain Eva Innocente and the crew of La Sirena Negra are just trying to make some money transporting small cargo across the galaxy. When Eva's sister is kidnapped by a crime syndicate, Eva is blackmailed into undertaking dangerous missions to pay her sister's ransom. On top of that her cargo hold has been taken over by psychic cats, some emperor wants her dead for rebuffing his advances, and she's having some very confusing feelings about her engineer. Soon she's drowning in lies and testing her crew's loyalty. But Eva will risk everything to save her sister, including the life she has built and the family she has found on La Sirena Negra.

This story had a good balance between adventure and humour. The general tone of the story was on the lighter side, which made this easy to read. The reader doesn't get overwhelmed by the details of space politics, interspecific cultural differences or confusing technical information. The story is paced well and has an interesting cast of characters. The plot does feel scattered at times, and it takes a while before there's much progress on the main conflict. The pace of the adventure, with Eva hopping from one planet to the next in a very short time, means that you don't get a lot of details about the different planets, which does make the world of the story seem a bit bare.

Chilling Effect is a fun space opera, perfect for a few hours of escapism. I look forward to the sequel.

I'm afraid I will not be writing a proper review of this book. I couldn't bring myself to finish it, and I don't review books on my blog that I only read in part. I expect that if I did force myself to finish it, my review would be rather scathing, which, of course, is not good publicity.

My issues with the book were two fold: first, the plot was a bit haphazard, feeling like an episodic SF cartoon series more than a coherent novel arc. Second, the miscomprehension of physics was so extreme, I wanted to scream at the author for not asking someone to look over it. At best, my review would have been an evisceration of that aspect of the book, since that is my specialty.

thank you to NetGalley for the e-arc

I'm always grateful when I'm able to read a novel for free, and based on cover and concept, I was excited about this one.

Unfortunately, the first few chapters (or first 17%) failed to grab me. The characters didn't pop from the page (though I did enjoy how it showed different cultures) and I got from the first few chapters that this was going to have more action scenes than I personally enjoy.

As the weeks have passed, I've pondered whether I should pick this up again, but the details have already started to blur, and this novel wasn't memorable enough for me to give it a third try.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This is a spoiler-free review.

I’ll be honest, as soon as I heard ‘psychic cats’ I was all in on Chilling Effect. I love space opera, I love off-beat heroes, and I love cats. While banter-y ‘squad’ sci-fi books don’t tend to work for me (see my burning hatred of Aurora Rising), but there was something about Chilling Effect that just worked. While it wasn’t perfect, it was so much damn fun.

Chilling Effect is a plot-driven book filled with pop culture references (I spotted Star Wars, Deep Space Nine, and Portal, among others) and loads of fun, snappy dialogue. It moves at breakneck speed and kept me turning the pages well past my bedtime. There is a lot of plot packed into this book -- I feel like it actually could have been teased out and made into two books with more in-depth characterisation (see below). However, this does mean that I tore through Chilling Effect quickly and I definitely enjoyed the ride.

For me, a lot of the weaknesses of the book come from the characters. While I really liked Eva, she was the only POV character and therefore was the only one that felt fleshed-out. She is not your classic hero -- she's stubborn, foul mouthed, violent, and a bit mad. However, I really understood her, her absolutely frantic thought process, and the reasons she made certain decisions -- she's such an incredibly fun character and I enjoyed her immensely. However, the other characters did fall a little flat for me. I’d love to have seen some of the story through Vaskar, Min, or Pink’s eyes, especially as they were kept out of the loop of Eva’s situation and plans -- this would have given them more depth and added a new, interesting layer to the story. In fact, I really just felt like I didn’t know them at all and sort of forgot about them as soon as they were off the page (there's even another crew member, but I don't even remember his name because he's so far in the background for the majority of the book). I also didn’t get the sense of camaraderie that is the most joyful part of these 'squad' stories -- the chemistry just wasn't there. At one point, Pink mentions that Eva is her best friend and I thought ‘really? Is she?'. I hope we get to see more from the other characters in later books because they had so much potential to be awesome.

Chilling Effect wasn’t the strongest science fiction book I’ve read, but damn was is fun! I really enjoyed the quirky world building, the fun writing, and the off-beat plot. If you’re looking for a fun book for the summer and love picking out pop culture references in books, you should definitely give Chilling Effect a try.

I had high expectations after I read the blurb and wasn't disappointed.
I laughed a lot and enjoyed this book, well written and engrossing.
The psychic cats are my favorite characters in the book and I loved them.
A fun and engrossing read, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

An ambitious space opera following a woman, Eva, as she and her crew perform a series of tasks in order to rescue her sister.

Chilling Effect is certainly quirky - it reads almost like a series of episodes each self contained with its own adventure. Those adventures are all fun and engaging, with impressive world building. There is a lot to absorb but it is well written so doesn't feel like an overload.

I didn't particularly like Eva - the main character - although I can't quite put my finger on why! The other characters were brilliant though - all individual personalities that I enjoyed getting to know!

This review has been posted to Amazon and Goodreads.

This book had me at psychic cats! Once I started reading I was completely and entirely hooked! Also can we take a moment to appreciate this book cover because it has become one of my favourite covers ever! Complete with space cats!

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading this but it was amazing and took me on a wild ride! This book is fast paced and action packed and every time I thought I had figured things out, I was hit with a plot twist that had me reeling and I loved every second of it!

This book has a wonderfully diverse cast who are all so different from each other yet they work so well together and have become family. I loved how they looked out for each other and protected and supported each other. They each have their own flaws and baggage but are there for each other and help them through it.

The main character, Eva, is a wonderful character who I immediately fell in love with. She isn’t perfect and has a lot of baggage which still haunts her but we see her go through some really great character development. She is sassy and sarcastic and doesn’t tolerate any crap from anyone, though it does get her in trouble at times. She is also bilingual and unapologetically Latinx. I loved how her culture was an important part of her life and how she switched from Spanish to English mid-sentence. Especially as I also switch between Urdu and English regularly when I talk.

Eva already has a lot on her plate, from dealing with her sister being kidnapped and her having to work for a crime syndicate to get her back and on top of that she ends up insulting an alien called Glorious, who is the living embodiment of toxic masculinity and male privilege. It’s something that’s really relatable and made me angry on Eva’s behalf because she was blamed for the mess and there is no consequences for him.

This book has such great world building and takes us to all the far corners of space and it was so great to see different places as it showed how vast the world is. We get to see so much from psychic cats to mind controlling parasites and all the aliens! I had total Firefly vibes reading this and I just loved it so much, from the space drama to family bond and so much more!

I also loved the plot twists, which I did not see coming and left me mind blown! The story itself takes place over a longer period than I thought it would too so that made it even more interesting to see where the story would take us next. One of the things I loved in this book was the chapter titles. I know it doesn’t affect the story but they did make me giggle! The whole story is hilarious, I constantly had a grin on my face reading the book.

This book is a great debut and I am so looking forward to seeing where Eva and her crew go next especially there’s unresolved things at the end of the book. Also I would like to just put it out there that I would love to see more psychic cats, even a whole book about them. Please and thank you.

Nutty nut entertaining space romp with a strong protagonist. A bit violent and kooky in places but a good first installment.

Based on the reviews, this seems a bit of a hit or miss book, and for me it fell squarely into the latter category. It had all the ingredients for me to love it, and yet it fell flat.

Chilling Effect follows Captain Eva Innocente who is forced to work for a crime syndicate after her sister is kidnapped. But she isn’t allowed to tell her crew, and must instead complete the tasks in secrecy. And then obviously the truth comes out and, you know what, I sort of lost track of where the plot was supposed to be going at this point.

I think my main problem with this book was that it was almost trying too hard to be a funny adventurous romp through space (a la Star Trek). Everything happened in a kind of bitty way, and didn’t always clearly connect together, most obviously at the point where everything is revealed and Eva decides that…she wants her ship back? She doesn’t care that this crime syndicate might destroy the galaxy, she just wants to steal her ship back.

Which leads me to my second point. Eva is such a hypocritical and selfish character. Selfish, because she doesn’t tell her crew, but just gets them into increasingly dangerous situations for no apparent reason (from their POVs), and because she just wants her ship back when the rest of the galaxy is at stake. I read one review, about halfway through the book, which mentioned how she seemed to be aiming at “charmingly reckless” but veered more towards general disregard of crew’s safety while claiming to be all about keeping them safe. Hence the hypocrisy. (Not to mention that time she referred to a character as being self-centered when she herself had been so for the entire book. Not that I’m still frustrated by this.) Ultimately, I hadn’t disliked a main character as much as I did Eva in a long time. Also there was hints that she may have been complicit in the deaths of a bunch of people which is why she was out of the game (ha), but like. She didn’t really show much remorse for it. It was never going to be smooth sailing, me and her.

The final thing I really didn’t like was the romance with an insect alien. Like, I do not want to read even the beginnings of potential sex with an insect alien, let alone the foreplay bit. I completely skipped those parts, I won’t lie. Also, I don’t mean to sound like I’m policing how you write sexualities, but Eva was meant to be pansexual and, unless I missed something, that didn’t seem obvious. Of course, the insect alien could have been what that was about. Maybe. But anyways. There are so many simple ways to establish that, and I never felt as though it was established. (Disclaimer: I was skimming after a bit so it’s entirely likely I just missed it.)

So yeah. In the end, it was just another hit-or-miss book that completely missed me.

A lively and pacy adventure ideal for fans of Mass Effect (and especially the Garrusmancers out there). An entertaining romp that has some really interesting ideas (I really liked some of the alien concepts, especially the quennian's use of smell to communicate and the gas-jellyfish owner of a notorious crime station). I did feel, sometimes, that Eva was suffering a bit TOO much, even for a main character- after about the fifth attempt on her life and shocking revelation I was really pulling for her to get a nice lie down in a dark room- but I can't really complain about a book making me empathise with the characters too strongly!

I also utterly adored the psychic cats. Good cats. A+++++

Firefly with psychic cats and kooky characters, almost a cliche isn’t it? despite the synopsis this a damn good read and well worth the time

I wanted to read this book because the synopsis and book cover were just up my street .
I love 'Space Opera' with a twist , with quirky characters and psychic pets ( in this case cats)

However I was disappointed …………….. whilst on the cover the cats were psychic they just appeared to be ordinary cats after the first brilliant scene , what happened ? .
I don't mind characters speaking in a foreign language but would love to actually know what was being said without the use of a Spanish dictionary .
There was plenty of gore and killing , the pace was fast , there were many camp scenes …….but as I said above I was left feeling disappointed , without being able to say why .
If this is one of a series I might be tempted back to read more by the Author .

I was given an ARC of this book by Netgalley and the Publisher in exchange for an honest review.