Touched by an Alien by Gini Koch (Alien Novels)

8/10

How can a sexy marketing manager join forces with an Alpha Centauri male in Armani to save the planet-using hairspray, a Mont Blanc pen, and rock n' roll?

Easy...

She's Touched by an Alien.

Marketing manager Katherine "Kitty" Katt steps into the middle of what appears to be a domestic dispute turned ugly. And it only gets uglier when the man turns into a winged monster, straight out of a grade-Z horror movie, and goes on a killing spree. Though Kitty should probably run away, she springs into action to take the monster down.

In the middle of the chaos a handsome hunk named Jeff Martini appears, sent by the "agency" to perform crowd control. He's Kitty's kind of guy, no matter what planet he's from. And from now on, for Kitty, things are going to be sexy, dangerous, wild, and out of this world.

Touched by an Alien by GJ Koch is the first book in the Katherine “Kitty” Katt series that is running to 6 books already. The main protagonist of the series is Katherine “Kitty” Katt, who in this first book of the series goes from her job as a marketing manager to fighting extraterrestrial life and saving planet Earth. From the first encounter with the “super beings” you're in for a rollicking chase to save the world in the end.

To begin I must mention that the whole story from start to finish is very funny, humorous and has full laugh out loud moments. Using aliens, nifty technology, MacGyver moments and full tilt action to enliven the storyline. The storyline is great, it follows a nice logical order in beginning with the introduction of Kitty to the Alpha Centaurians and following this up with a nice plot that thickens as the story progresses. What would a secret organization by without spies and possible double agents? Although there are some element in Touched by an Alien that might have been inspired by other alien films, it did not bother me at all. With the strong portrait drawn of Kitty and how she uses reference to films like Men In Black like “humming the tune” etc was just great and fitted well into the storyline.

So meet Kitty, desk job marketing manager now, by accident, alien hunter. When I first got introduced to Kitty I was directly hooked onto her. Gini Koch uses Kitty in a first person narration throughout the books, this was spot on for showing her personality and providing a very lively story. Kitty's statements and witty comments plus her casual attitude towards what happens around her just rock. Next to Kitty, there are the aliens that make up a large part of the book, Jeff and Christopher who are Alpha Centauri and the good guys here to protect Earth from the evil "super beings" and parasites that turn humans into "super beings". I was pleased at how the Alpha Centauri were visualized: All men and women wearing black ironed suits, maybe again a bit MIB-like, but it was just right and it does appeal to showing off a secret organization, and adds a certain flavour to it. Back to Jeff, who after meeting Kitty, hopelessly falls in love with her and this is shown more than once by him giving innocent boasts and hints to Kitty about marrying and having babies. This teasing in between Jeff and Kitty was a nice addition, on top of the snappy and funny remarks of Kitty. Jeff overall does not show that much of himself, other than being an nice looking A-C and being an empath. Yes. Several aliens have special power. All of them have this great feat called hyperspeed allowing them to travel and act and talk fast. Not suited for driving though! Next to this Jeff is an empath and can feel emotions. Christopher, another A-C, also feels for Kitty and this together with a confrontation of Jeff was a nice short dramatic scene. Similarly to Jeff, Christopher's background is again not fully shown and I would like to see more of them both.

As far as the plot goes, most of it became only clear at the end of the book, using the first half of the book to create the right setting and showing what the Alpha Centaurians have done so far. This again did not bother me at all, Touched by an Alien is the first book in a series so I expected some world/story-building in there. A great plus of this was that nothing felt rushed and that most of the time you get to have the dialogues featuring Kitty. When she takes the scene she just tries to rationalize everything, Kitty-style.

Touched by an Alien is great, a humorous, action packed science fiction book that gives you a thrilling and fast-paced story. Now that Kitty has joined up with the Alpha Centaurians, I can only imagine what she has in store for us!