I grabbed a copy of Jordan Summers‘ erotic sci-fi novel, Bacchus, from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
Bacchus is a desperate Phantom warrior. Saddled with the quest to find a sexually compatible female race for his people, he stows away on a ship bound for planet Earth. There he discovers a world teeming with women, but there’s only one way to determine if any of them are a biological match. He must pick one and mate with her. Sex sounds easy enough or it would be, if Bacchus weren’t from the Blood Clan. Where on Earth can he find a woman who doesn’t freak out at the sight of three-inch fangs?

Dog breeder Carrie Rittner has had a rough year. Between a broken engagement and her emotionally distant brother, Buzz, she’s ready to throw in the towel. The last thing she needs is a sexy ‘psychiatrist’ trying to charm her pants off.

It’ll take more than Bacchus’ chemically charged pheromones, dominant nature and forked tongue to convince Carrie that they’re made for each other. He will have to release all his animal instincts and give her the ultimate love bite.

Review:
Ah man, it took me forever to choose a book to read. Nothing struck my fancy. I’d had a hum-dinger of a day and was feeling the lingering after-effects of a torrential crying jag. I was emotionally wrung out, both physically and psychologically—the puffy eyes, the sniffly nose, the hollow, washed out sensation left in the wake of the intense flood of adrenaline (or whatever) that drives an angry, hurt, psychic upheaval.

This is where I was when I tried to pick out a book to read and nothing seemed to appeal. I finally settled on this one because it looked ridiculous enough to drag a chuckle out of me and, failing that, maybe a little hot sex would improve my mood. (Certainly, it would have in real life, if only hubs hadn’t been the focal point of the problem in the first place.) It should be noted, of course, that I didn’t go in expecting serious and high brow literature, which is good because I sure didn’t get it.

Even starting this book with no more expectations than to get to laugh at the always pleasantly cheesy ‘Mars Needs Women’ trope I wasn’t satisfied with this read. Ok, yes, it had all the elements and some of them were presented in such a flat way as to be funny. (You know, like when someone says something patently ludicrous with a straight face.) But there was just no depth to anything in this book. And, again, I’m saying that even having opened it not expecting much.

For example, and this is a bit of a spoiler, so be warned: Bacchus arrives on a ship bound for earth (so his planet already has access to earth, so no idea why he’s the first to mate an earth women and why he has to sneak to do it), he randomly chooses a man on the beach to absorb his memories so he can understand earth customs. He then falls in love with the memories of this random man’s sister. He then goes to her house, looks in the window and falls into insta-mating-lust, he meets her and within about 2-3 hours they’re in bed, he’s imprinted his DNA into her and they’re off to his home world. Once there, since she was a herpetologist on earth she was able to immediately become the clan healer.

Seriously, on a planet of 7+ billion people (assuming there hasn’t been a population increase) and a galaxy of who knows how many he meets his destined, biological mate through the first human he interacts with! And, am really to believe that space fairing, blood-dependent, bipedal, humanoid aliens with minor snake-like characteristics are actually closer to reptile than human and there are so few differences that no one on their original home-world was better suited to fill the healer role than a non-practicing earth herpetologist? WTF?

So I didn’t get any fun searching for his mate scenes or getting to know that mate ones either. Just BAM, there she is. And the mating included as transfer of memories, so no need to get to know one another either.

Sex was just as abortive. His pheromones made her pliant and aroused, so no need for for-play (despite his massive cock, apparently). It was basically, stick it in and slam it home, BAM, we’re done here.

Then there were all the just plain creepy things that happen. He spies on her through her windows, then slips into her house and watches her undress and shower. Creeeeepeer. Then he used his pheromones to make her willing, remaining just this side of dub-con based on his intent and wish to have her come willingly. And come on, getting aroused over watching two dogs mate is just weird.

So, I was looking for a fun, cheesy, erotic sci-fi romp. This had the cheese, but failed on just about every other front. Writing was passable; editing could use a little work.