Tag Archives: PNR

Book Review of Trust (Running With Alphas #1), by Viola Rivard

Running With AlphasI picked up a copy of Viola Rivard‘s Trust: Running With Alphas from Amazon when it was free. It is part of my Alpha reading challenge.

Description from Goodreads:
Just when she thinks her life can’t get any worse, Taylor meets alpha wolf Alder – the most caring, gallant, and handsome man on the planet. On the run from the police, there’s no way she could possibly get involved with him. But somehow she does anyway.

Alder seems to be convinced that the two of them are going to live happily ever after in his mountain territory. But between looming pack wars, her dicey past, and his twin brother – the most obnoxious, sadistic, and handsome man on the planet – Taylor has a feeling that her new life among werewolves may be just as complicated as her human one.

Review:

This was surprisingly cute, which was a bit of a shock when I was expecting trashy erotica. But no complaints on that front. I have a soft spot for big alphas who shepherd, tend and fret over their mates, trying to feed them and such. Alder is just such a shifter, so he was a winner for me. I liked Taylor too, but Alder carried the book for me.

I did think the plot was a little shaky. You never find out the details of what Taylor is running from and I don’t get the feeling we ever will. It’s just a frame to hang the romance on. The characters were pretty shallow. The chemistry between the two wasn’t really shown. The mishap with Hale was predictable, there is a cliched female enemy and it’s a cliffhanger. But all in all, I was more pleased than I expected to be.

The Alpha Meets His Match

Book Review of The Alpha Meets His Match (Shifters, Inc. #1), by Georgette St. Clair

The Alpha Meets His MatchI picked up a free copy of Georgette St. Clair‘s The Alpha Meets His Match on Amazon. I believe it is perma-free.

I’m reading it as part of my Alpha Review challenge. I’m reading all the books on my shelves that include the word Alpha. I did Omegas a few weeks ago and it seemed like the thing to do to follow it up with Alphas.

Description from Goodreads:
Coyote shifter Bobbi Jo Simpson, top investigator for the Enforcer’s Council, is finally closing in on the ultimate prize: The Chemist, who’s been poisoning shifters all across the country for years. She’s the best at what she does, so what could possibly go wrong? Try: just about everything. She’s forced to partner up with the most stubborn, infuriating werewolf private investigator on the planet, who also happens to be her fated mate. Throw in a wily human thief who won’t stop trying to help her, a surly lion shifter who may be the death of her, a computer genius who knows too much about her…if she survives this case, it’ll be a miracle.

Wolf shifter Jax Mackenzie has never been accused of being a nice guy – but being nice doesn’t get the job done. A wolf without a pack, he works the most dangerous assignments doled out by a private security company – and his latest case is a real killer. A fatal Rage virus is spreading among the members of an elite BDSM club, and Jax is determined to get to the bottom of the case.

To get what he wants, he’ll ruthlessly use his supernatural strength, his wealthy connections, and Bobbi, the beautiful coyote shifter who’s following him for reasons of her own. But the coyote is his fated mate – and possibly his mortal enemy. Now it’s not just Jax’s heart that’s at risk – it’s his life.

Review:
I’m gonna be a Ranty Ranty McRanty-pants on this one I’m afraid.

So, this book was a total, total, TOTAL fail for me. It just includes every weak woman cliché that drives me crazy—the good girl who wanders into the slums and almost gets gang raped (except that she’s rescued by the hero), the woman who is given free drugs until she’s so addicted she’ll crawl and beg and blow three men while being humiliated and beaten for her next fix, the strong, capable, independent heroine who secretly just wants to submit to the big strong man, the need to force a woman in a sexually compromising position that she secretly enjoys, sexual humiliation as character development, and of course, enough gang rapes to keep me disgusted well into next year.

Having finished it, I can confidently say that there is not a single woman in this book who isn’t a sexual victim of some sort. Not one. Every female non-main character is either a blithering sex slave, a prostitute throwing herself mindlessly at a man or a rape victim (often more than once of those at once). The two main characters have both been sexually abused. Forget the Bechdel test, this fails life and as sad as it is to say, I bet the author doesn’t even realize this is the shit she wrote. It’s just that much of a norm in America.

It’s like rape and abuse of women is some sort of authorial shorthand for ‘bad man’ or ‘bad area.’ Want the reader to know the neighborhood is not just dangerous, but really dangerous? Rape a random ‘good girl.’ Gang rape her, even better. Never males though, this gives a different message. Want to ensure your reader knows your villain is truly irredeemable? Have him rape women. Maybe make him a drug lord who can systematically gang rape whole harems of drug addled women. That’ll surely get the message across.  I DON’T WANT TO READ SHORTHAND! And what’s more, I do not want to read a parade of clichéd female misery and victimhood.

Literally, every time Vaughn’s perspective came up I gave very serious consideration to giving up on the book. Not just because he was such a vile character, but because his vileness was so poorly written. Sure, he did horrible things, but they were things purposefully designed to bluntly telegraph **I am an evil man,** rather than to develop any sort of believable evil character.

I’d see Vaughn and think, “Great, now I have to sit through another gang rape and more abuse lobbed at mindless, defenseless women. I get it, he’s bad. Can we move on now?” And you know what, I was right every freakin’ time. Scenes with Vaughn were universally abusive, derogatory, rape scenes. It shouldn’t be so freakin’ predictable.

At 37% into the book, I made myself a note of how unimpressed I was with this common use of women in books; how I didn’t expect to see a single female character that wasn’t a victim of some sort and that by the end the author would put the heroine in the hands of this rapist villain. If she just wanted to give the hero a chance to save her (because she wouldn’t save herself) he’d get there in time. If the author wanted to add the extra shine to his character, he wouldn’t get there until she’d been raped. Then he could be such a good man that he’s willing to love a sullied woman. PEOPLE, I SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PREDICT THE EVENTS OF A BOOK SO WELL AT 37% THAT I EVEN KNOW THE SUBTEXT THE AUTHOR WANTS ME TO READ FROM THEM! At least the author took the first option. That was a relief.

On a less horrendously offensive note, I was annoyed when the mission required the characters pose as a couple in a BDSM club. Of course, with no conversation, she’s automatically the sub and he’s the dom; because obviously women are submissive and men are dominant. Riiiight. Wouldn’t want to include anything that isn’t trite and predictable. How many times have uncomfortable female characters had to dress in slinky clothing and go to sexy clubs with men as part of an investigation in books? How many times have they secretly enjoyed it? I swear I’ve read this EXACT scene a dozen times. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve written this exact same question into at least one other review. It really does get old and it’s not even a little titillating. I’m just bored by more of the same.

And that’s the thing about this book. Everything in it has been seen before. If the rapes had been scaled back I probably would have just been annoyed instead of disgusted. But to have to read over-used, under-developed, badly edited, bog standard, poor PNR tropes on top of rape wallpaper? No, just NO, in big, fat, bold capital letters.

Omega

Book Review of Omega (Demon Chaser #1), by Charlene Hartnady

OmegaOmega (by Charlene Hartnady) is book number two of my Omega Weekend Challenge. I got the book from Amazon, almost a year ago, and I believe it was free at the time.

Description from Goodreads:
Demon Chasers… Protectors of humanity. Sworn to uphold the peace. Oath bound to keep the existence of demons a secret.

Katy is an ordinary girl living an ordinary life…or at least, that’s what she thinks right up until she’s abducted and for no apparent reason.

Demon Chaser Cole rescues Katy from the claws of the Alpha of a resident demon wolf pack. Hunted by Bain and his pack he must try and find out why the wolves are willing to risk a two hundred year long standing agreement with the Demon Chasers in order to have her.

The Chaser suspects that Katy is not as innocent as what she seems. Cole had better move fast though because the longer he’s with the raven haired beauty the more impossible he finds it to resist her.

Review:
OMG, that was just one long series of cliché tropes, one after another after another. The whole thing is basically the old stand-by ‘woman is the mysterious Chosen One, but doesn’t know it. She is hunted by the baddy that wants to claim her and rescued by the hero who actually does claim her. In the mean time, she passes out a lot and does stupid things like insist on trying on clothing prior to purchase while being actively hunted, giving the baddies time to find her again. Because obviously a good, sexy fit is more important than anything else, in the moment.’

It starts out with a bad case of the ‘for some reasons.’ For some reason he wanted to protect her. For some reason he was unaccountably attracted to her. For some reason he trusted her. For some reason he told her things he’d never told anyone else. For some reason he HAD TO HAVE HER. For some reason she felt safe with him. For some reason she was attracted to him, even though they’d just met. For some reason she was wet for him. For some reason she HAD TO HAVE HIM. Just to be clear, from a readers perspective, ‘for some reason’ is never enough of a motivating factor.

After the ‘for some reasons,’ we moved on to the fact that the plot basically boils down to who gets to have sex with the girl. Honestly, haven’t we moved past heroines being reduced to their sexual availability and heroes being the man who wins the big P in the end?

Then, of course, we had sex by the numbers. 1. kiss. 2. sucking nipples. 3. fingering clit. 4. slip a finger in and be shocked at the wetness. 4. mutterings about being beautiful and ‘so tight.’ 5. oral sex and instant orgasm number one. 6. PnV penetration, instant orgasm number two. 7. Roaring male climax and instant female orgasm number three. All in about a paragraph, so no room for any emotional build-up or anything and all this after thinking about ‘pounding her without foreplay.’ (Oh, yeah, so sexy. Argh. No.) Tell me fellow readers, how many times have YOU read this EXACT SAME sex scene? I know I’ve probably read it a hundred times.

But there are still more cliché tropes to be had, because we move right into the ‘I love him, but I have to give him up’ and ‘I love her, but I she’ll be better off without me.’ No one discusses this. No one admits their feelings; all those feelings that developed in about two days out of freakin’ no where. There is no chemistry between these two. And of course, we end with her going to him and demanding he accept her. Cliché! Overused! Horrible!

And all of this is decorated with writing like this: “Probably from the fact that he could smell her from here, like a summer breeze and candle lit dinners but also of red lace and leather.” Someone want to tell me what that actually smells like and does red lace really smell differently than, say, blue or white? I noticed a distinct lack of commas too.

I mean, I know these kinds of stories keep selling, so they keep getting written and if they’re your cup of tea, by all means have at it. But for me, I don’t know if I can run in the other direction fast enough. If this hadn’t been read as part of a challenge I almost certainly wouldn’t have finished it.