Review of ‘Breaking the Surface’ by Rebecca Langham

This is the second book in Langham’s futuristic/sci-fi series ‘Outsider Project’. I thought this was a solid sequel. While I did like the actual storyline of the first book ‘Beneath the Surface’ more, I thought this book was better written. If I remember correctly, book one was Langham’s debut so it was nice to see a steady improvement in her writing.

One of my complaints about book one was that it slowed down and dragged at times. In this book, the beginning was a little slow, but the overall pace felt much better to me. Once I got into the flow I wanted to continue reading. And since I like a little more action in my sci-fi in general, I appreciate that this book felt like there was more.

My biggest issue with this sequel was not remembering all of what happened in book one. It has been two years and at least 550 books in-between me reading these two installments. My memory is just not that good. And while I did remember the major storyline, and Langham reiterated a few things, there were too many mini plotlines and characters that I just never remembered. People had even died and I didn’t remember. I honestly wonder if I had read these two books back to back, maybe my rating for this book would be higher. And just to be clear, I would 100% recommend reading these books in order. I would not read this book without reading book one first, preferably reading book one not too long before book two. I really think it would be too hard for people to jump into the series here.

While I enjoyed the action and how the main storyline played out, I’m not sure if I loved the ending. My guess is Langham is leaving it open for a book three because if she’s not, the ending is not really satisfying enough. And like I mentioned before, I like how the major storylines wrapped up so I don’t even see a need for a book three, so I’m a little surprised this ending was picked. The issue is Langham did something similar in the first book so it felt unneeded and repetitive here.

While these books have a romance, they are much more sci-fi than romance. The romance is very PG and absolutely takes a backseat. So I would recommend this series to lesbian futuristic sci-fi book fans and not really romance fans looking to try sci-fi. I didn’t like some of the story choices as much as book one, but this book was better written and more of a gripping read. 3.50 Stars.

A copy was given to me for an honest review.