Monthly Archives: November 2017

The Scot’s Bride

Book Review of The Scot’s Bride, by Paula Quinn

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I won a copy of Paula Quinn‘s The Scot’s Bride through Goodreads. Conveniently, I was also looking to read a book by an author beginning with Q for my alphabet challenge.

Description from Goodreads:
AN IRRESISTIBLE SCOUNDREL
Highlander Patrick MacGregor likes his life just the way it is. Fighting for his coin, enjoying a woman’s charms, and bearing no responsibility at all. Aye, that’s the life for him. That is, until Patrick sees her-a raven-haired beauty with eyes as dark as midnight. Patrick swore never to fall in love. Not even with a lass as wild as he…especially when she’s from a rival clan.

AN UNDENIABLE DESIRE
Charlotte Cunningham knows Patrick is trouble the moment she sets eyes on him. Her only goal is to escape the possibility of marriage. Any marriage. But as the summer days turn into sultry nights, enticing her beyond reason, Charlie is forced to choose between the freedom she craves and the reckless rogue she can’t forget.

Review:
Note first that this book is apparently part of a large series that I’ve not read. It stood alone just fine, though I could feel some history was there that I was missing. But I don’t think it effected me too much. It seemed to mostly centre around the male MCs family’s sense or honor and therefore I should know what kind of man he really was, even as he acted a rogue.

Note also that this whole Historical Romance, Historical Highlander Romance (which seems to be its own subcategory) is new to me and one I avoided for a long time because I’d never read anything in it I liked.

Not also that I recently read The Scot Beds His Wife, by Kerrigan Byrne and didn’t hate it. I had a few quibbles. It contained some of the things I dislike about the genre, like men who kiss women even when they’re being told not to and women who then melt for them. But it also had a lot I liked. I decided I had judged the genre too harshly. So, I thought I’d give this one a try.

Note lastly that I was wrong. This book has all the things I dislike about the genre squashed into its pages. I cannot tell you how many times I made gagging noised while reading this book. I cannot tell you how incensed I was that Patrick pursued Charlie even as she adamantly told him not to. I cannot tell you how angry I was that he kissed her when she told him she didn’t want him to and how much I disliked that she then, of course, groaned for it. I cannot tell you how sick I was of reading how physically perfect both characters were. I cannot tell you how little respect I had for a woman who recognized a rogue and all his tricks and still fell for him. I cannot express how annoying the artificial and excess drama was. Why do we need bandits and people randomly trying to steel wives and dead neighbors and returning lost loves?

Outside all of that, I found a lot of the language too flowery and occasionally anachronistic, the writing painfully repetitive and the book just too long. I suspect that I was never going to like this book. If I’m going to enjoy this genre, I’ll have to find a way to tell the difference between this sort of book and ones with a bit more substance, a few less winking rapscallion heroes, and heroines that are strong and independent in ways beyond being mouthy. I tried. Now I know better.

Learning to Want

Book Review of Learning to Want, by Tami Veldura

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I think I picked Tami Velbura‘s Learning to Want up in a Instrafreebie giveaway. It was certainly something along those lines.

Description from Goodreads:
Khoram is an enforcer, a bodyguard, but his boss has just betrayed him. Now he’s stranded on a desert planet he’s never heard of, chained to the only other human around.

Atash grew up in the cracks of Dulia’s complex social structure, where dominance and submission are a man’s worth. He’s struggled for years on a lower caste but Khoram could be his ticket to a better life if they can find common ground.

Atash wants to teach Khoram the art of submitting by choice and maybe make a name for himself along the way. Khoram, however, isn’t here to play Atash’s political games. He’s going to escape, if his former employer doesn’t see him killed first.

Review:
So, I found my experience with Learning to Want mixed at best. Picking up a book about a master/slave relationship (and not one in which characters play master or slave, but a real one in which one is actually owned by the other) is always an iffy proposition. Add to the mix that the enslaved character was a free black man, even if the enslaving character is black scaled (he’s still of the dominant, slave owning culture) is an uncomfortable echo of recent Western history. Though, if this was just the authors attempt to include some diversity I have to appreciate the effort.

There was just a lot of squink around the edges of the story. Even the Ohiri, the perfectly bland race that entered enslavement willingly and was supposed to be an example of unproblematic slavery, were raised from birth to submission. There willingness was coerced at best and they’re completely dismissed in the book. Background fodder, basically.

But my main issue is that, with the exception of transport in the beginning, which we’re told was 20+ days, but we don’t see, the whole book is about a week. In that time a free man was captured, molested, sold at auction, fondled some more (with some dubious consent), introduced to BDSM (which was really JUST SPANKING), come to NEED it, fallen in love, accepted and appreciated his ‘collar and cuffs’ (a euphemism of slavery), performed a perfect power-play sex ‘scene’ in front of hundreds, formed a soul bond and lived happily ever after (as a slave). And I was just like, “Ummmm, uh-uh. No way. We have skimmed over some major trauma here.”

Some books have a magic peen, where someone has sex one time and everything is magically perfect in the plot. This book had a magic paddle. One spanking and Khoram released all his guilt over being a drug dealing slaver in the past and accepted his lot as a sexual slave, craved it even. NO. Big fat No.

This book seemed to want to have both slaves and consent in the same people. In fact, that the slave must consent is stated more than once by characters in the book, seriously stressed even. And that just can’t work. It can’t. Veldura tried real hard, but IT DOES NOT WORK.

The writing is fine. In fact there are the occasional turns of phrase that are really beautiful. And the editing didn’t stand out as problematic. But the plot did. It is too rushed and the ‘free and consenting slave’ is an impossibility that Veldura failed to make feel anything but icky. As fluff, ok it’s fine. I could even like it. But think even the smallest amount about the plot and the whole thing collapses in on itself.

Book Review of Dalí, by E.M. Hamill

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I purchased a copy of E. M. Hamill‘s Dali. I believe I got it straight from the publisher, Nine Star Press.

Description from Goodreads:
Dalí Tamareia has everything—a young family and a promising career as an Ambassador in the Sol Fed Diplomatic Corps. Dalí’s path as a peacemaker seems clear, but when their loved ones are killed in a terrorist attack, grief sends the genderfluid changeling into a spiral of self-destruction.

Fragile Sol Fed balances on the brink of war with a plundering alien race. Their skills with galactic relations are desperately needed to broker a protective alliance, but in mourning, Dalí no longer cares, seeking oblivion at the bottom of a bottle, in the arms of a faceless lover, or at the end of a knife.

The New Puritan Movement is rising to power within the government, preaching strict genetic counseling and galactic isolation to ensure survival of the endangered human race. Third gender citizens like Dalí don’t fit the mold of this perfect plan, and the NPM will stop at nothing to make their vision become reality. When Dalí stumbles into a plot threatening changelings like them, a shadow organization called the Penumbra recruits them for a rescue mission full of danger, sex, and intrigue, giving Dalí purpose again.

Risky liaisons with a sexy, charismatic pirate lord could be Dalí’s undoing—and the only way to prevent another deadly act of domestic terrorism.

Review:
I gotta admit, it took a while for me to get into this. The beginning felt a little like I’d been dropped into the middle of something. (I actually double checked this wasn’t a sequel to anything.) But once it got rolling, I really enjoyed it. I liked Dali. I liked the side characters. I liked Rhix. I liked the plot. I just basically enjoyed it.

Other than feeling lost in the beginning, my only complaints are that there were a number of convenient coincidences and I really wanted more resolution on the Dali/Rhix front. Those seeking romance might finish this disappointed. I however, am hoping there might be a second book coming at some point.