I received a collection of the short stories (#.75-2) and the first two full-length books in the Risdaverse series by Ruby Dixon (When She Purrs and When She Belongs) in a monthly Renegade Romance Box. Thank goodness they are special editions, because I full-on HATE the covers on the normal version. I would NEVER have picked them up. I think they are cheap-looking and tacky, and they don’t AT ALL fit the tone and content of the actual stories. These are a vast improvement.
Though, as a funny side note, When She Purrs has a side character named Jamef in it who is a Mesakkah (therefore large and blue with horns and dark hair), who has prosthetic limbs and a red eye. Imagine my surprise when I get to reading When She Belongs and find that the character on the cover is not in fact Jamef but a new character named Jerrok. Cue three chapters of confusion until I went back and double checked the names. LOL
I reviewed the short stories here, where I said “collectively, I thought they were merely OK. One I disliked; the rest I found entertaining but fairly bland, trope-heavy, and overly reliant on telling the reader about things that happened off-page in undocumented passages of time.” I reviewed them individually on Goodreads. This post is for the full-length books (#3 & #4), When She Purrs and When She Belongs.
When She Purrs:
Life on a farm planet at the edge of the universe can be dangerous for a human woman alone.
That’s why I need a husband. ANY husband.
Unfortunately, all the men I approach keep running off. So I hire a bounty hunter to kidnap me someone capable and strong, someone who will scare off the creeps that are trying to move in on my territory.
It’ll be a marriage of convenience only.
I should have been a little more specific about who I wanted, though…because the intimidating and fierce praxiian male that the bounty hunter brings to me? The one with feline features, big arms and an even bigger…uh, farm?
He’s the problem I was hoping a new husband would scare off. What am I supposed to do now?
(Don’t ask him, because all of his suggestions are completely and utterly filthy and have nothing to do with a marriage of convenience.)
Review:
100% I think this full-length book is significantly better than the preceding short stories. Plot-wise, they are all very formulaic. They’re basically the same story arc in different colors. But the full-length book gives the story the time to develop that the short stories lacked and desperately needed. That said, I still thought this was only OK. The premise requires that the FMC do something so ridiculously stupid that I could not believe that someone with any sense of their circumstances (which she definitely has) would do. Also, all of it could have been resolved before the book even began with a simple conversation…or even so little as introducing themselves to one another. Plenty of books have this problem, but it was especially stark here. The characters are very sweet, though, and I do like an MMC who is 100% all in. Plus, the bounty-hunter comic relief was funny. As I said, it was an OK read, and sometimes that’s enough. Not everything has to be high literature.
When She Belongs:
He’s the biggest jerk in the galaxy.
I can live with being stuck on the far end of space. I can live with having to spend weeks on an abandoned station in an asteroid belt. Sure, I don’t belong, but I’ve got my book and my eight-legged attack cat with me. I should be fine.
I’m not fine.
My alien host, Jerrok, is a jerk. He’s surly and unpleasant. He hasn’t bathed in years. He’s part cyborg – and all those parts seem to be falling to pieces. He’s the one in charge of this remote station, which means we’re forced to interact. It’s an absolutely miserable situation for both of us…
…until I realize that all his anger and bluster is covering the fact that he’s thoughtful and understanding. He’s protective, too, keeping me safe when the bad guys approach. When I get hurt, he’s the one tenderly caring for my wounds.
Jerrok is also intensely, utterly lonely, just like me.
As time passes, I start to wonder…maybe where I belong isn’t a place…but a person.
Review:
As I said above, the longer books are better than the short stories. However, I think this one was too long. It felt like it took me 2 years to finish, and I found it repetitive…redundant even. Dixon tells the reader the same thing over and over and over again. Having said that, the characters are very sweet. I like that she is as fiercely protective of him as he is of her, and he doesn’t (much) try to discourage that. And I love that he falls hard and is 100% in. But, as with the previous books (they are all very formulaic), much of the plot’s tension could have been resolved with a simple conversation. There are also a whole host of other characters who feel very much like they are from other series/books (probably are), but I don’t know which ones. So, to me, they just felt random, whereas for others, they may be a sentimental check-in with a known couple. All in all, this was an OK read. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it.
As a side note, I noticed some formatting issues in this book (not in the previous one)—things like words being split with a hyphen for no reason. I am assuming that’s because in other versions that would have been a line-wrap, and it wasn’t corrected for in the special edition. Just mentioning it.
Other Reviews: