Review: Steel Coyote by Beth Williamson

Steel Coyote
Beth Williamson
Published: July 22, 2019 (Entangled)
Purchase: Amazon
Review source: copy provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review

Reviewed by: Margaret

Rating (out of 5): 3 stars

Remington Hawthorne recently inherited her adopted father’s cargo ship, the Steel Coyote, and has been struggling to maintain it and her crew of three. They desperately need a big payday. So she agrees to take a job she knows she shouldn’t, smuggling for a shady character. But when she meets to finalize the deal, he won’t give her the job. Until a man steps in claiming to be her new pilot.

Max Fletcher’s reputation as pilot and playboy convinces the customer to give Remy the job, as long as Max is there for pickup and delivery. The two of them will be stuck together on the ship for the next two weeks until the job is completed. Forced cohabitation trope FTW! The romance gets physical pretty quickly and I didn’t feel like it convincingly moved beyond that, despite the two-week time frame. It felt perfect for a TV movie, but could have been developed more in a book.

Adding to the TV feeling were all the Firefly vibes I kept getting. Remy’s BFF and the ship’s engineer Katie was almost certainly inspired by Kaylee from the show. The world also has that same mix of high-tech spaceships visiting worlds where everyone rides horses.

I really wanted to like Steel Coyote. I also really wanted to edit it. I just didn’t love the writing and often had issues with the word choices. The dialogue was repetitive and the mystery surrounding Remy’s past was predictable.

That said, I’m happy to see the sci-fi romance trend continuing. This just maybe isn’t the best example of it. But if you’ve already read Nightchaser and Polaris Rising and still need a sci-fi fix, it might be worth a try.

Sexual content: sex, references to abuse and human trafficking