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Book Review: In Her Thrall, by Chloe Parker

I picked up a copy of Chloe Parker‘s In her Thrall as an Amazon freebie, over the summer.

Rumor has it there’s a beautiful beast stalking the English countryside.

For hundreds of years, the Van Helsing family has searched for the creature Dracula, a demon of the night that stalks the shadows for hapless prey. Freshly returned from service in the Great War, Van Helsing heir Jonathan Edgewood finds himself in the English countryside on a hunch that the creature has taken a new form: the Lady of Harker Heights, Bianca Ivyshade.

Each year on All Hollow’s Eve, Bianca hosts an extravagant ball, and Jonathan has landed an invitation. He brings with him two other vampire hunters and his Great War compatriots: shy scientist Marcus Ryder and charming occultist Edward Shelley.

When a storm confines the guests to the manor for the night, Jonathan, Marcus, and Edward find themselves irresistibly drawn to the beautiful Bianca. And they soon learn that there are secrets hidden at Harker Heights—and perhaps even a greater evil than the vampiress herself.

Will the men escape with their lives? Or will they fall under the vampire’s thrall?

To begin with, the blurb is a little inaccurate about the setup of the plot of the book. While not devastatingly important, it is annoying. So, I figured I’d mention it.

More importantly, this is mostly smut, with just enough plot to string it all together in some sort of context. That’s not a criticism; just making sure we’re on the same page about what sort of book this is. It’s pretty good for what it is, too. The villain (and thus the challenge that gave the book what little plot it has) is pretty cliched; nothing new, original, or interesting there. The same could be said for Bianca. She challenges none of the norms for female characters of her ilk. But I liked her well enough.

I found Jon, Marcus, and Edward interesting. Perhaps not particularly well-developed since the book isn’t deep enough to allow for it. But I enjoyed them all the same. There is sword-crossing and a genuine pre-existing relationship between two of the men, and I liked that. However, by the end of the book, the relationship configuration felt like two couples who overlap rather than one polycule, which is perhaps a little disappointing. But, again, enjoyable enough.

I have book two of this series, which I intend to read. And honestly, the fact that I’m willing to continue the series says more about the book than any of the above.

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Book Review: The Lost Siren, by Raven Storm

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I’d seen several tempting teasers for Raven Storm‘s The Last Siren on Tiktok. So, I grabbed a freebie copy from Amazon when I was able.

A human female born into a breeding manor never has a choice…I am a slave, but at least I am alive.

When the man with wings and scales gave me a second choice—I took it. The others of his kind pin me with hungry eyes, but I’ll do what I must to survive. I’ll preside over their Draken Games—and choose a winner every night to share my bed. The alternative is death.

Traded from one prison to the next I have but one hope left—the Lost Siren. I must find her before the demon hordes come if these men—Drakens—have any chance of escaping their mountainous prison, and me along with them.

I am on an unfortunate losing streak. This is the fourth book in a row I’ve read that started out well but then deteriorated by the end, largely due to authorial choice. The problem with this one was that, though the writing was perfectly readable, I hated everything about the plotting and characters. I found everyone unpleasant and unlikiable. But I have a second, more important complaint that I’m not even 100% sure how to explain.

Throughout the book, over and over and over again, Wren is told that no one will hurt her; no one will do anything that she doesn’t consent to. But the book is full, I mean chock full, of people doing things she doesn’t consent to. She almost dies like 15 times from drakens hurting her. I’m talking broken bones, concussions, intended SA—serious hurts—and often these events happen on the same page as “no one will hurt you, no one will do anything you don’t want.”

This could have been interestingly integrated into the plot. The different degrees or meanings of safe or consent could have been explored. Or the expectations of men and women or drakens and humans. Maybe it was a lie to put her at ease, etc. This could have been purposefully used. Instead, when each draken says she’s safe and no one will force her to do anything she doesn’t want, the inference is that they are sincere. Over and over and over again. Despite this, the excuse for many of the injuries is that the drakens are fighting their instincts. (It’s never clear what these instincts actually are; it’s implied to mate, but it reads like kill, so I don’t know.) The important part is that if the instinct is to rape and rend, I do not know where the assurance that no one would hurt her is supposed to have even come from. It’s not in their nature. It’s not in their culture. It does not appear to be a shared norm or commitment.

What this means is that it’s the narration—the author—that is lying to the reader. They set up the expectation that Wren can look to ‘her males’ to keep her safe and reinforce it repeatedly with the ‘no one will force you’ mantra. But then prove it a lie over and over while also writing Wren as if she is safe with them, which is provably (proven) false. Each man physically harms her more than once. Each man stands by while she fights off opponents that require a suspension of disbelief to accept she survives (and I mean stand next to her while this happens).

All of this breaks an important compact between the author and the reader. Again, this does not feel like it’s purposeful plotting; rather, it feels like an author-inconsistency. She wanted the reader to believe something, so she repeated it over and over but was not able to substantiate it in the actual plotting. I lost trust in Storm very early, and they never regained it, never even seemed to recognize that they needed to try. All in all, I simply didn’t like the book.

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