Amazon Outskirts Press Category:  Science Fiction Publisher: Outskirts Press (POD) ISBN-10:  1598009257 Pages: 353 Copyright: July 18, 2007 ISBN-13: 9781598009525 As galactic war looms, a family of mixed Terran-alien heritage faces a crisis of loyalty. Anna Lorrondon Helsak, the half-Terran, half-Neoran Chancellor of the Bowman Pact (a union of twelve planets) abruptly drops her long-standing treaty with the Neoran Confederation. The alien Rusorin, one of two survivors of a powerful alien race (and Anna’s oldest friend) asks her to reconsider. The Neorans need Anna’s support against their rivals; she herself needs Anna’s help to hunt her mortal enemy, the only other of her people who is still alive. Anna refuses to listen and turns on her friend. Bewildered and hurt, Rusorin travels to the independent city of Bretton Katt, the Neorans’ last hope for an ally in Terran space. There she finds an ineffectual mayor and a populace hostile to outsiders, Terran or Neoran. Her contact, Geoffrey Slater, a Confederation agent of mixed blood, is dead. The scant clues point to corruption among the Neorans themselves. Befriended by Rob Lorrondon, Anna’s intense, volatile son, Rusorin discovers that Anna has made a new alliance with Victor Bastian, the ruthless ruler of twenty planets and the Neorans’ sworn enemy. Worse, her old foe is working as Bastian’s agent. Rusorin warns Anna that this will only lead to disaster; again she is rebuffed. Appalled, Rob and his siblings beg their mother to drop this scheme. Against all reason, gripped by some motive only she understands, Anna holds to her plan. Encouraged, Victor Bastian plans to seize Bretton Katt and attack the Neorans. Desperate, the Brettonese ask the Neorans for help. As the life they’ve always known crumbles, Anna’s children face estrangement from their mother and the prospect of galactic war. Excerpt On a January morning in 2441, Letsa Lorrondon drove her mother, Anna Helsak, Chancellor of the Bowman Pact, eighty kilometers through a snowstorm for a secret meeting. That same morning, in the city of Bretton Katt, police constables pulled the body of Geoffrey Slater from an icy creek. Few people knew of both events, and no one thought to connect them. Fifteen years later, Letsa (her family called her Lily) told her stepbrother Enrik Ratt that if she had known what was coming, she would have done anything to prevent it, even if it meant crashing the car into a tree.

The Bretton Katt Alliance
The year is 2441 and Anna Helsak, the Chancellor of the Bowman pact, allies herself with her old enemies while breaking the old alliance with her father’s people, the Neorans. Although she’s been warned that the new alliance will bring discord to both her family and her country, not to mention her race, Anna persists in her endeavors – much to the chagrin and disbelief of her closest friends and family. Her motive is not disclosed – at least not in this, first installment in the Lorrondon Cycle.
Quite captivating, but oftentimes slow-moving and rather confusing, the story Margaret Garside
weaves in ”The Bretton Katt Alliance” is not your standard science-fiction fare. Although there are space-ships, aliens and gizmos galore, the focus tends to be more on the political machinations and family dynamics than on the warfare, weaponry and battles. At the same time alien and strangely familiar, the life on Bowman IV is shattered by an unlikely and very unexpected decision made by Anna Helsak, a decision that tears her family apart and even in this first book demands numerous victims. Interesting interactions, both within her colorful family and the threatened independent city of Bretton Katt, draw the reader in quickly, yet the story does not move forward enough nor fast enough for my liking.

I’ve enjoyed “The Bretton Katt Alliance” quite a bit more than I’ve expected based on the synopsis
found on the back cover, both for the competent writing and interesting storyline offered by
Margaret Garside. If the story becomes a bit more streamlined in the next installments and if more secrets are revealed, I think this series just might grow on me considerably. Intelligent and
engaging, this is science-fiction for those who look for more than just gadgets and strange looking aliens; and if you like family sagas, this book should be a must on your summer reading list.

The Bretton Katt Alliance, reviewed by TCM Reviews






The year is 2441. Anna Lorrondon-Helsak is about to make a controversial decision that will endanger her career, break apart her family, and inevitably mean war. Anna is the chancellor of the Bowman Pact, a republic of twelve planets. For a century Bowman Pact has had a treaty with the Neoran Confederation. When the treaty is up for renewal, Anna intends to decline the offer.

No one understands Anna decision. There has been some semblance of security, if not true peace, through the treaty. From a personal point of view the act seems to make no sense either. One of Anna’s husbands was a Neoran. To break the treaty, essentially serves to break those family ties as well. Anna has her reasons though…

Those readers who like good political intrigue and the inner workings of governmental policy will love The Bretton Katt Alliance. The author is tireless in her detail. She even includes cheat sheet information about the characters, the locations, Neoran pronunciation, and a little about the history of these worlds.