On Impulse by Heather Texle

SPSFC 2023 SPSFC 2024

Heather Texle launches with a thrilling, non-stop, action-packed novel that is a blend of space opera adventure and sci-fi murder mystery that won the 2023 Minnesota Author Project contest in Adult Fiction. If you enjoy books with a strong female lead, a sass-talking spaceship’s computer, an annoyingly hot detective who won’t give up, and more action scenes that you can shoot a blaster at, then this book is for you! When the Department trained me to catch criminals, I never dreamed I’d become one. Agent. Suspect. Intergalactic fugitive. I was one of them until I shot my partner in self-defense. Even though the Department cleared me of wrongdoing, my co-workers didn’t agree. They turned their backs on me, so I turned my back on them. My partner’s actions never made sense. After ignoring my gut for a year, I asked my tech-genius best friend to dig into it. Now Jarrett’s gone dark, and I soon discover he’d been brutally murdered. An officer finds me standing over the body, blaster in hand. Even I admit it looks bad. There’s no way I can trust the Department to investigate further—not if I'm already the prime suspect. My only option is to run. Is it impulsive? Sure. Will having law enforcement dog me across the galaxy make life difficult? Most certainly. I’ll have to stay one step ahead of them if I want to solve Jarrett’s murder and clear my name. Doing that will require every trick the Department taught me—and a few I learned on my own. Grab it now to find out what mystery Jarrett uncovered and to what extreme Reliance will go to in order to bring her friend’s killer to justice.

Adult • Science Fiction/Cyberpunk and Biopunk • Science Fiction/Space Opera • Science Fiction/Exploration

Reviewed by lamichi writer on 2025-07-03T04:45:30Z:

While the immense efficiency of the space police is the real sci fi element in the book, Reliance is a likeable protagonist who makes hasty decisions. The second half of the book is very good. I'd surely like to read book 2 sometime.

Reviewed by SKaeth writer on 2025-06-26T20:00:39Z:

A great, quick paced sci-fi cop mystery featuring a protagonist who is jaded with the system & plays loose with the rules, up against a straight-laced, duty-obsessed poster-boy agent type, with the specter of a rich-as-gods but poor-in-morals tech conglomerate looming over all.