My Rating: 
I gave this book four stars, which shocks me, since science fiction novels really aren’t my cup of over-caffeinated coffee. [Sorry I don’t do tea!]
That being said, I would like to start this entry about by saying. I have a love/hate relationship with Science Fiction. My dad loves it, and I tend to hate it. The first science fiction I ever read was Door into Summer by Robert A. Heinlen when I was in 3rd grade. Yes, I was really in 3rd grade. I remember hating it and being mad I had to write a book report on it for my third grade teacher [who didn’t really know what to do with me. I finished the entire 3rd grade language arts curriculum for the year in one month and it was meant to last the entire year, so I spent most of third grade, bringing my own books to read during LA time and writing book reports on them]. Maybe, as an adult, I would like this book better now, especially seeing as it was a book written about the past about a future that has long passed.
I enjoyed the first five or so books of the Apprentice Adept series by Piers Anthony, which took two different worlds, a world of science [Proton] and a world of Magic [Phaze], where alternate selves learn to cross the barrier between worlds, so the magical adepts learn about science, and the Proton serfs/citizens experience magic, though after Robot Adept , I feel like that series went downhill with the last two books.
I’ve always enjoyed Michael Crichton books, and his books were some of the best known science-fictions books, but really for the most part, I tend to stick mostly with urban fantasy [ie: Dresden Files] or supernatural fantasy [think A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas], as my preferred genre of choice.
That’s why it was really odd when I found myself intrigued by Breakthrough by Michael C. Grumley. What was even weirder, was that this book was in the romance section of the Kindle Unlimited library.
This book starts when a nuclear submarine is forced to suddenly abort its mission in the Caribbean Sea under mysterious and strange circumstances.
Meanwhile marine biologist Allison Shaw has started to figure out how to have a two-way conversation with a pair of dolphins, and she learns more than she expects to when her dolphins are asked by the military to explore a secret object on the ocean floor.
At the same time, in Antarctica, there is mysterious trembling, and glaciers are slowly collapsing.
All three of those events happen spontaneously at the same time, and Allison’s path crosses with John Clay’s, and the two of them are forced to work together, even though Allison really hates the military for something that happened in her past.
I don’t want to spoil this book. I really try hard not to spoil books. So I won’t say anything else about the plot.
This book reminded me a lot of Michael Crichton’s books. This one sort of brought back vague memories of Sphere. It’s not the same story as Sphere, but there are definite similarities between them, so if you liked Sphere, you’ll like this one too. It also sort of has hints of Next by Michael Crichton.
The characters were well-written. The science in this book also wasn’t way over my head. I understood what they were talking about. The science was explained in a way that even I could understand, and I’m not really a scientist. I really liked the interactions between the human characters and the dolphins.
There’s no cursing every other page, there are no sex scenes, there are no love triangles. There’s lots of action and suspense.
Plus there are dolphins:
You really can’t go wrong with books about dolphins.
But there aren’t just dolphins… There are aliens and natural disasters too!
I did have questions at the end of the book, mainly in regards to the mysterious object at the bottom of the ocean, and the species that brought it here, but seeing as there are three other books in the series, I hope that those questions are yet to be answered.
I really liked this story. I liked it so much that I immediately bought the rest in the series. I totally and highly recommend this series. Even if you’re a little bit iffy on science-fiction, you might like this book. This is a unique and interesting story, and I haven’t read anything else like it, and coming from somebody, who regularly reads 200+ books in a year, that’s definitely saying something.
Hence, why I gave this book 4 stars, even though it was a scifi book.
There are no trigger warnings for this book at all, so if my vague review hooks you, please go for it 😉
This book is available on Kindle Unlimited.