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Book Review: A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor, by Kathryn Moon

I’d seen Kathryn Moon‘s A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor recommended several times. So, when I saw it as an Amazon freebie, I snagged a copy.

On the brink of losing her position as a maid and with no prospects to go on, the offer of a place at Rooksgrave Manor—a house of ill and unusual repute—sounds like a perfect fit for a young woman with Esther’s inclinations. Even better, the invitation comes by the hand of the handsome Dr. Underwood, a delicate gentleman with a ferocious alter ego who knows exactly what he wants from Esther.

Upon arrival, the men and the daily decadence of the manor feel too good to be true for a girl of Esther’s station. There are rules to be followed, expectations to meet, and Esther is afraid she might be too wicked even for a place like Rooksgrave.

Temptations lurk around every shadowy corner and Esther has never been a girl able to resist. But the risk of disappointing her new gentlemen isn’t all that’s threatening Esther’s new position. Rooksgrave Manor’s protections for its unusual patrons are failing, the wards are crumbling, and Esther’s new and exquisitely pleasurable life may all come tumbling down.

I have no general problem with Porn Without Plot…or without much plot. It can be a lot of fun, and I knew what kind of book I picked up. But I think I can officially now say that almost 400 pages of it is just too much. As much as I liked Ester and her men, I got booooored. Especially once everyone had made nice and become a happy family. After that, what little tension of interest there was evaporated.

I did appreciate that Esther was a woman who gleefully enjoyed sex. I mean, sure, if you want to be critical, it plays into the women can’t control their urges and are slaves to their desires narrative that has been so bad for women throughout so much of history. But I also think Moon was trying to subvert it a little bit. And honestly, I’m just not interested in delving into it. Mostly, this was a sweet kinkfest worth taking at face value.

I liked the characters. What little world there is, is interesting. The writing is perfectly readable. All in all, I enjoyed it. 400ish pages was just too much to keep me interested in it, with as little plot as there is.

Other Reviews:

Review of A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor by Kathryn Moon

Reading After Dark: A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor [Tempting Monsters Series #1]

Book Review: Desire Aforethought series, by Kyra Alessy

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I picked up a copy of Kyra Alessy‘s Demons and Debts as an Amazon freebie and then purchased Debts and Darkness and Darkness and Debauchery.

An Autistic woman being hunted. An Incubi MC who can help. But will their price be more than she can pay?

When I was fourteen, a woman I called mom was murdered … and it was my fault.

I’ve been on the run ever since, but someone’s chasing me. I don’t know who they are or what they want. The only thing I’m sure of is that I need to keep moving or more people will die.

They’re going to find me again. They always do.

The human authorities are useless. The supernatural cops, even worse. My only hope is the Iron Incubi MC, the biggest, baddest, meanest supes around. I’m sick of running and I’m desperate enough to make a deal even if it costs me everything I have left.

Oh, and I’m neurodivergent. Autism means my brain works differently. I can keep it together in the day-to-day and mask my hundreds of quirks when I’m around others for short times, but now the five human-hating Incubi who I went to for help have me prisoner at their ‘clubhouse’, i.e., mansion in the middle of nowhere.

So, what happens when five hot as sin s€x demons lock up a human girl who sucks at all the bedroom stuff, doesn’t cope well with change, and definitely can’t mask her ASD 24/7?

I’m Jane Mercy and I have no f**king clue, but I don’t think it’s going to go well for those gorgeous-enough-to-be-underwear-model SOBs … especially when my stalkers come for me …

I’m just going to review the whole series together since that’s how I read it…or binged it, rather. I really liked the first book, Demons and Debts, liked the second book, Debts and Darkness, OK, and was fairly meh on the third one, Darkness and Debauchery. This left me finishing the series feeling disappointed. But on the whole, it averages out pretty well.

The two things I appreciated most about this series were the tone of the writing (which was well-edited and easy to read) and the heroine. I adored Jane. She’s snarky and self-contained. I mean, I liked the heroes well enough, too, but Jane was my shining star. And it was largely her sense of humor and inner dialogue that made the tone of the book work so well.

The reason my enjoyment of the series diminished the farther along I went, however, was that I felt like it lost some of the spark that kept the first one so interesting. The men were true alpha a-holes in the beginning. There’s no pushing her away for her own good or cruel to be kind, etc. These men did not care about her. And Jane was forced to navigate that, which created a delicious tension. (There’s not a sex scene until past 75% either.)

By book two and certain book three, the men had changed. They’d come to love and simp for Jane, which is fine, but the books lost a lot of the tension as a result. Plus (and these and big ones for me), by book three—where I would have expected to finally see the romance develop between the characters—Jane spent almost all of with one of the men, and the rest were separate. The plot also devolves into cliched SA territory that I did not enjoy reading even a little bit. I just too often find such plotlines overused and lacking in creative thought. I call them the low-hanging fruit of plotlines. Meh.

Lastly, I was disappointed with the spicy scenes. There was very little in the vein of foreplay or emotional connection. It’s all very focused on what went in where and when. So, it didn’t particularly light me up.

All in all, however, I’d happily read more of Alessy’s writing. I enjoyed more than I didn’t.