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Dark Horse cover art

Dark Horse

Written by: Michelle Diener
Narrated by: Christina Delaine
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Publisher's Summary

Some secrets carry the weight of the world.

Rose McKenzie may be far from Earth with no way back, but she's made a powerful ally - a fellow prisoner with whom she's formed a strong bond. Sazo's an artificial intelligence. He's saved her from captivity and torture, but he's also put her in the middle of a conflict, leaving Rose with her loyalties divided.

Captain Dav Jallan doesn't know why he and his crew have stumbled across an almost legendary Class 5 battleship, but he's not going to complain. The only problem is, all its crew are dead - all except for one strange, new alien being.

She calls herself Rose. She seems small and harmless, but less and less about her story is adding up, and Dav has a bad feeling his crew, and maybe even the four planets, are in jeopardy. The Class 5's owners, the Tecran, look set to start a war to get it back and Dav suspects Rose isn't the only alien being who survived what happened on the Class 5. And whatever else is out there is playing its own games.

In this race for the truth, he's going to have to go against his leaders and trust the dark horse.

Winner of a SFR Galaxy Award 2016 and the Prism Award 2016 for Best Futuristic.

©2015 Michelle Diener (P)2016 Podium Publishing

What listeners say about Dark Horse

Average Customer Ratings
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Good read

Liked the story disliked the length of it.found it slow at times all an all good story

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great narration!

Great story, great narration and really liked the female protagonist. It is more Sci-fi than romance but great book!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Excellent First Installment...

Rose is an orange, an unknown sentient life-form. She is kidnapped from earth, experimented on, cut into, and caged for 3 months. Rose is lucky to be sane, let alone navigating the new and alien world that she is thrust into now that she has been freed. Rose is too calm, too capable, but there is no other choice. If Rose is going to cope and survive, and even maybe thrive, then she needs to keep a cool head, especially as she is helping a newly awakened sentient warship to grow and thrive and decide what his form of morality is going to be, now that he is free and not being subjugated by their captors.

Rose walks off the ship where she has been caged, only to meet her own personal elf, a big, strong alien complete with elven ears. She has to learn to speak the languages, and navigate the cultures of these worlds. This story is not easy to follow but its not hard either. I really liked the pace of world building and the pace of the action. Not too much and not too little. You could listen in half hour increments and still be able to follow the overall story. The amount of negative assumptions about her by the member people of the other sentient races also provides us with a small taste of what people of visible minority groups experience every day. I feel that any story that educates, informs, and entertains, is a really decent, good story to read.

I really liked this story and I am looking forward to reading the next one.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Long and boring

The story arc is interesting and would be fun but they failed on the execution. I’m half way through and I can’t take it anymore. I’m have so many questions unanswered but it’s so annoying I don’t care anymore.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic

Intriguing and fascinating story line, beautiful concepts, and beautifully done a little slow start, but more than worth the listen

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Definitely worth a listen!!!

Great storyline, maybe a little bit longer than it needed to be. Would definitely recommend!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Great story

Great story ... amazing start to the series or as a standalone. Passionate from start to finish can't wait for book 2.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Wow. Just wow.

This was an amazing story told via an incredible performance. A new favourite that I will listen to again and again, right up there with Jessie Mihalik. Can't wait to start book two. Sazo really grew on me, he sounded so creepy at first!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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.. but

a fun story with an absolutely amazing performance! it was predictablein a romance novel kinda way... did I mention what a great narration...

the narration saves this book.

now all that said I said to myself " I wonder if the 2nd book will have the new protagonist hooking up with anyone else but the captain"

spoiler alert!

the story is basically a hallmark movie in sci-fi. and looking at the reviews of subsequent books , 3 &4, it's cut, copy, paste.

an awesome opportunity for character development, story, or heaven forbid ... have her fall for an non- commissioned member in any of the books is so apparent and predictable... AS MUCH AS I LOVE THE NARRATION.... I'm not going to waste a credit to purchase the third or fourth books

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    5 out of 5 stars
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very interesting

very well read and I'm not one for Sci fi but did enjoy this one look forward to the next in the series 😀

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