An Accidental Goddess

By Linnea Sinclair

Gillie is not your average woman. She has magical powers, she is a powerful Kiasidira, which is like a wizard. She is the protector of the Khalar people and enemy to the Fav'lhir who wish to destroy the Khalar.
During a battle to wipe out the Fav'lhir sorcerers, Gillie's spaceship took a hit that pushed it through a rift in space and about 350 years into the future. Her crippled ship was found and towed to a Khalaran deep-space station, Cirrus One. Gillie was unconscious when the ship was rescued and woke up to find, to her dismay, that she was declared a goddess some 350 years in the past when she supposedly sacrificed herself to save the Khalar people. Fortunately, no one realizes Gillie is the goddess, the Lady Kiasidira, and Gillie wants to make sure on one ever does. As the protector of the Khalar people, she is loath to destroy this religion they have built around her actions in the past. It would be disconcerting to their society to be told they have been praying to a fraud for hundreds of years. Also, even though she is a very special person, Gillie just wants to be treated like any other person. She doesn't crave the spotlight or adulation. Also, she has developed a crush on the hunky Admiral in charge of the station, Mack, and she fears the truth would destroy a very promising relationship. All she wants is some time to allow her ship to repair itself, with her help, and to get to know Mack a lot better. But this is not to be when Gillie realizes that the Fav'lhir, whom she thought she'd taken care of, are back and are once again moving against the Khalar, whom they regard as inferiors since they do not possess powers like the Fav'lhir and like Gillie's people, the Raheira. And they are launching their offensive at the station, Cirrus One, with the help of some infiltrators inside the station. Once again, Gillie has to sally forth to do battle to protect the Khalar and in the process has to reveal her true colors.

An interesting combination of romance and fantasy and science fiction, at first I was rather dismayed at the romantic element as I thought it would be the main driver of the story like any romance novel is. But that was not the case. The romance is an important part of the story but it is not the main focus. There is plenty going on in this story besides the romance (which is not explicit, I am glad to say) and plenty of action and magical confrontations and it is all pretty exciting and quite a good story to read. I did feel it kind of had a slow start but after a while it really caught my interest and I enjoyed it a lot.

New Word

Phratry: Family; people descended from a common ancestor. '"It's a very old phratry. Carries a significant amount of power behind it."'