Dalton Greaves agreed to join a Unity scout ship after a humiliating break up. Those who sign up to work for the galactic organization either come back to Earth rich or just don't come back. His job is to go down to newly discovered inhabited planets and explain that Unity is there to help them just like they helped Earth. His predecessor was eaten by a potential new member species, so he doesn't expect to survive his ten year contract. Their current assignment doesn't look promising since the horrifying looking insectoids live on a planet teeming with wildlife, so vicious even they stay behind city walls at night. But things start to go wrong even before they land when a rival galactic organization, the Assembly, shows up and the two ships destroy each other stranding their representatives on the planet. Dalton's counterpart is an alien whose race is famed for slaughtering Unity soldiers including humans and considers all humans to be conniving manipulative liars. Since it wastes no time convincing the local hive queen of this, Dalton thinks he's lost all touch with reality when she informs him that she's taking him as a husband, her Fourth Consort. 

This is definitely an odd read and I spent most of the book feeling like I was missing something. It could have been a cultural comedy of errors, but while neither Dalton nor his counterpart know the local customs, or what the queen is trying to accomplish, it's mostly just a series of baffling events. His hosts seem to lack a sense of humor except for the other two consorts who engage in some somewhat witty banter about Dalton's chances of survival at various stages. Dalton was a man lost in grief and apathy when he left Earth, so there is a lot of potential to explore his character, but there are only a couple of brief sparks that indicate any deeper substance. On the surface the first contact scenario describes Dalton meeting the hive, but the insectoids don't seem to have any distinct personality to them as a species and individuals felt like they were type-cast. The most interesting part of the story is Dalton's interactions with the Assembly representative, although referring to it as a bizarre love triangle in the blurb is seriously misleading. It's certainly far from the first time a plot includes an alien who believes humans are greedy, aggressive liars who is then impressed that the hero human is capable of acting honorably. 

Overall, I feel it had a lot of potential, but for me it felt flat and mostly lifeless. Reviews seem mixed, some people thought it was hilarious but others agree with me. It definitely isn't at all what I expected from this author and from the descriptive blurb. A bizarre love triangle? That's a song by New Order, but not a good description of any part of this plot.