I grabbed Linda Boulanger‘s Dance With the Enemy from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
The time has come for Elenya to meet the man she’s belonged to since she was three, the man whose blood flows through her veins. In the midst of the maidens, the King’s warriors are released; each forced to find the woman chosen for him through her scent, resulting in a half-mad frenzy that heightens already aroused animalistic needs. Elenya is terrified, especially when she realizes what the warrior searching for her does not – that she’s been marked with the blood of her family’s enemy.

As the leader of the King’s elite forces makes his way toward her, she ignores the pull of the marking and darts out into the night … into his territory. She has to get to the Masters so they can right this wrong. A mistake must have been made. Surely fate would not force her to dance for a lifetime in the arms of her enemy. And if it did, would his blood flowing through her veins be enough to unite their hearts?

Mildly Spoilerish Review:
I thought that this book seemed fairly well written, if you like the sort of thing. I generally liked all of the characters and even the plot, in the broadest sense. However, there were just some very basic aspects of the story that I personally disliked. I acknowledge up front that these are personal preferences and plenty of people won’t share my opinion. Some will probably even be like, ‘are you kidding me?’ But I’m giving the book 3 stars, because though a lot of it made me cringe and grind my teeth I’m not claiming it’s a bad book in any fashion.

In some ways this is a fairly cookie-cutter piece of fluff. Young, innocent virgin is forcibly (in this case socially) claimed by a hardened warrior. His beastly heart is then melted by said maiden’s (and yes she is referred to as a maiden) genuine, open heart, fiery temper and guileless sensuality—absolutely predictable.

Where Boulanger tried to add a little variety was in the cultural necessities that brought Elenya and Tahbruk together. I can appreciate the effort here. It’s and interesting idea. But I hated the incredibly sexist patriarchy created. Women seemed to hold no value beyond breeders and whores—glorified whores, courtesans even, but whores all the same. This sexism was highlighted, at least partially, to provide a challenge to be overcome. Again, I get that. But I still had to read 300+ pages of it. Conversely, since the marking ceremony was exclusively for the nobility, I was left wondering how men who weren’t noble warriors, say a baker, found wives. This was never addressed.

Now, here’s the Catch-22 that meant I was just never going to be the right reader for this book. Part of the plot was that some of the characters thought these same ceremonies, leading to this mistreatment of women, were out-dated and needed to be abolished. A good thing, yes? No. Not for me at least. I mean it is, but…one of my literary pet peeves is watching socially or morally superior characters, especially outsider characters, declare otherwise accepted cultural practices wrong. It’s one thing for a whole society, or even a portion of society to be struggling for the improvement of the laws and practices that affect their lives. It’s another to see one person telling the same society it’s doing something abhorrent. How arrogant is that? Even if that character is correct by modern western standards, do they really have the right to judge others? And when such social change is easily affected the anthropologist in me wants to cry.

The, admittedly contrary, result was that I enjoyed neither the existing social setting of the book nor the stories attempt at improving society. It just struck me as baseless optimism. There was no social push for improvement, just one or two individuals who apparently decided everyone else was socially stagnant. What’s more, I could have done with a little more world building outside of the mating rituals. For example, many characters pray to the ‘good Lord’ but religion is never touched on. So who is this deity everyone keeps calling on?

Add those big personal no-no’s to any number of smaller irritants, like my dislike of seeing otherwise good men driven to dastardly deeds by the loss of a platonic love, and this book and I just never had a chance. Again, I’m not calling it a bad book. The writing was fine. I don’t remember any editorial issues. The sex wasn’t gratuitous, which was actually surprising since I started the book thinking it was erotica, and despite being the first of a series, the book actually ended. So, not a bad book, just a bad book for me.