Meg Xuemei X

I borrowed an audio copy of Meg Xuemei X‘s Claim the Wolf King through Hoopla.

Description from Goodreads:

It’s a one in a million chance that the sexy-as-sin and savage wolf king finds his fated mate–me, the curvy warrior–on the most hostile alien planet. But you can’t call him one lucky bastard.

I can’t be his–I’ve sworn a blood oath to another. And I haven’t the time for mating when I have to lead a gang of the worst criminals to fight off the vampire hordes, cannibals, and Akem’s creatures of nightmare to find the veiled portal to go home.

The mating call doesn’t care for my difficult situation. It affects me with a fever like no other. Its frenzy bursts in my bloodstream, tormenting me with lust more than I can endure. But if I fail to resist it and break my vow, I’ll doom not only myself but everyone I protect, and we’ll never escape this inferno.

The ruthless, red-blooded wolf king isn’t one to listen to reason. And he has no intention of preserving my virtue and honor. He wants to mate with me more than his life is worth, and keep me as his forever. Nothing and no one can stop him on his way to claim me.

Review:

I’m going to be honest. I picked this book up expecting it to be complete shit. (I mean look at that cover!) But it was December 17th and I’d not yet read an X-authored book for my yearly alphabet challenge, didn’t even have one available to me. So, I grabbed this in a bit of a panic when I saw it. Any X would do at that point.

For about half the book I was happy with it. Pleasantly surprised that, while the sex talk (and actual sex) was just as overwrought and cheesy as you’d expect, the main character was self-possessed and refused to kau tau to the normal cliches of shifter erotica. In fact, I thought the author was making a point to avoid them and was thrilled to find an author who did. But then she (the author) seemed to lose her way.

[Spoiler in this paragraph] Up until about 2/3 through the book, I’d have called it a 3-star read. Then the most cliched of cliched erotica tropes was dropped like a pile of loose shit on the plot. The only female shifter to be included in the book at all turned out to be the violently jealous ex of the hero. She waltzed into the plot and tried to kill the heroine, while claiming she would take the man back. As I said, this is extremely cliched and over-used. But it’s also insulting to women everywhere (as it is almost every time this plot point is used, and pretty much EVERYTIME it’s the only woman of a group). As if we only exist in relation to a man. As if we can’t trust each other. As if we are in constant competition for a man’s attention. As if we have no value if we can’t re-claim it. Right there I dropped a star. Probably would have DNFed the book if it hadn’t been for a challenge.

What’s worse, in this case it went contrary to the world-building too. If finding your fated mate is so big a deal, I don’t believe anyone would think they could step between it. I don’t believe anyone would allow the ridiculous challenge she threw. Plus, after going on and on about how he’d kill anyone who threatened her, the hero just let the woman who literally tried to kill his mate and the man who facilitated it walk away.

Adding to my feeling that the author floundered and didn’t know where to go with the plot, so she took the path most traveled, was the fact that the sex scene after this was full of his dominance and her submission (the heroine had not been the submitting type at all) and described with such violence that I had a hard time envisioning it as sexy and not just painful. In fact, the author even used the phrase ‘the assault of it’ at one point. It seemed to be ranked on how erotic it was by how many times the word ‘cock’ could be used.

All in all, this was almost a good read. I honestly think the author set out to write a strong female character and avoid a lot of the misogynistic bullshit that often hides openly in erotica. But she didn’t seem able to avoid falling into the same pit as so many authors before her. I finished it rolling my eyes (literally) and disappointed.

Felicity Munroe did a fine job with the narration. I have to give her props for getting through those sex scenes without sounding ridiculous.

Addendum: When I posted my review on Goodreads, I realized I’d read another book by this author (The Siren). I laughed because I read it on Dec. 15th. So, I imagine it was the same end of the year, scramble for an X-authored book as this year. It made me laugh when I saw it.

I picked up a free copy of The Siren (by Meg Xuemei X) at Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
Two boys tied to her irrevocably. One offers life disguised as death; the other leads to death with unfathomable love. Her choice decides whether the world turns or ends.

Lucienne Lam, born to rule as the last of the Sirens, is running out of time. If she fails to find the TimeDust, an ancient power, her enemies will have their wish—her head on a spike. And she’ll never know the love promised by Vladimir, a fierce warrior of the Czech royal bloodline.

Except Ashburn, a genius ‘farm boy,’ has found the TimeDust first, and its power binds Lucienne to him. She must convince him to sever this forced bond so she can return to her first love. But breaking the link seems insurmountable when the TimeDust launches its own ominous agenda and the two boys prepare to duel to the death over her.

Review:
Not great. Not super bad either, but not particularly good.

Here’s my issue with it. It feels VERY much like it was written as a serial. The chapters are episodic and there is a certain amount of repetition that suggests plot recaps. Plus, since it is (or feels like it is) a serial, it doesn’t actually end. Reading this was very much like watching a television show that you follow, but only catch every other show. You know the plot, but bits are missing that you just have to roll with. Characters showed up with no history or explanation, simply inserted in the plot. Characters who had existed suddenly have hobbies or habits that the reader is never told about until they are incorporated. Even the romance happens off page and feels like it’s just been grabbed willy-nilly.

The whole ‘it must be a serial’ feeling is exacerbate by the fact that the book’s blub isn’t accurate to the events of this book. I can see how some of that might come up in the next, but it doesn’t here. The book ends before it gets to, “She must convince him to sever this forced bond so she can return to her first love. But breaking the link seems insurmountable when the TimeDust launches its own ominous agenda and the two boys prepare to duel to the death over her.” Nope, that doesn’t happen IN THIS BOOK. Looks like the author chose at least one less episode for this volume and one or more for the next…or just doesn’t know where the ongoing story split for the ‘books.’

The result of all this is a group of characters I didn’t feel I knew well, a romance I wasn’t invested in, a plot that feels fragile and anchor-less and a book with little beginning and no end.

I also had serious trouble believing that these were teens. They spoke, had skills and acted much older. Even worse were the flashbacks when the main character was supposed to be a child. It was nowhere near believable, even for a genius. Plus, she was just too smug to like and too perfect at everything.

The writing itself is fine. But as a BOOK, with all the elements a reader expects in a BOOK, it’s kind of a barely pass.