LUST FOR TOMORROW almost feels like a nostalgic read because it's so reminiscent of the military sci-fi classics of the 70s and 80s, like STARSHIP TROOPERS or ENDER'S GAME. I remember trying so hard to get into books like that in my early twenties and walking away feeling so disillusioned, because the worlds those books described were entirely men's worlds, and seemed to deliberately exclude women from being a part of the fantasy (at least, on their own terms).
This book feels like a direct response to the sexist male gazey sci-fi canon, both in homage and also as a critique. The heroine, Nina, is a foot soldier in a futuristic post-apocalyptic dystopian hellscape where zombies have ravaged the cities, forcing people to a life of scavenging or, if they're "lucky," military service. In the Stronghold, which used to be a fancy hotel and now serves as barracks, Nina lives on the outskirts of a sort of gated community, where she alternates between performing various duties in the Stronghold and going on raids led by Helmets.
Helmets are the commanders who lead the raids. Some of them take the helmets off after the battle is over, but some of them really have a hard-on for the helmets and wear them all the time like it's some kind of kink. (YAAAASS.) The people in the stronghold refer to these individuals as "helmet heads," pejoratively. But Nina, who is forced to hide so much of who she used to be to function in what remains of society, is fascinated by these people who seem to glory in hiding themselves so completely. Especially when a new Helmet joins the Stronghold and she finds herself utterly hypnotized by his voice. Most people don't like him and call him Alpha, but Nina wants to fuck him.
This is because Nina is smart.
I was really impressed by this book. For a debut, it is nearly perfect. I really liked the world building, which surprised me, because post-apoc is not a genre I gravitate to at all (I think the last one I read was, like, two years ago and I believe I gave it a two). The mask kink is hot and very on-trend. Why is nobody talking about the Reylo to mask kink dark romance pipeline? If you watched The Force Awakens and thought to yourself, "I want to fuck Kylo Ren," this book is for you. Especially if it was qualified by "But only when he's nice to me while domming the complete and utter shit out of me."
The sex in this book was great. It manages to convey a pretty compelling BDSM relationship with a Dom who does active care and fucks up sometimes but admits it. There were a couple scenes that weren't to my personal taste, but 90% of them were exactly my thing and all of them were well-written and contributed to the emotional development of the characters. I also liked that the heroine initiated the relationship between them and that the consent was mostly implied. I feel like too often, erotica writers are so conscious of making sure there's consent that they sometimes end up sounding like afterschool specials for How to Sex Without Being Rapey 101 and it ends up feeling artificial. This did not.
I personally cannot fully get on board with a romance unless there's an emotional connection and all the little moments between Tom/Alpha and Nina really made such a difference. There's people on TikTok who do videos about toxic couples where they make jokes about how they'd break up or divorce after the fact, but these two feel like a couple you could really root for. Which is why it kind of surprised me when, after Nina sees Tom's face for the first time, it feels almost anticlimactic. His face is never really described much at all. Maybe this was intentional, because his face was never what she was attracted to, but given the mutual simpage, I thought she'd wax a little more over (in Tom's own words) his "handsome face."
I only had a handful of qualms for this book. There's a jump where Nina and Alpha go from sleeping together to her waking up injured and I had to reread that scene several times because I didn't realize that there was a battle scene that happened off page. I think it's supposed to convey amnesia, like an actual blank space (kind of like those empty pages in Stephenie Meyer's New Moon), but it was really confusing to me. I was also a little confused about how the zombie outbreak happened in the first place (unless I was really dumb and I missed the explanation), and also about what Threshers were. There's also a really sinister undertone to the Stronghold which is only really hinted at here (and I'm sure will be explored in more detail in later books) but I really wanted to know more about what it is like post-apocalypse, and what these super sus military people are actually hiding (LOTS, probably).
Apparently the next book is going to be about the himbo of the Stronghold, Demetri. I really liked his character, and I'm excited to read more in this series. It's been a while since I picked up a sci-fi romance I really liked, and hats off to the author for writing a world that is sinister but not stomach-wrenchingly bleak. My poor little wuss soul wouldn't be able to take it. :)
Meh. I didn't love OBSIDIAN but it was pretty good for what it was, even if it was highly derivative of TWILIGHT. Here, in ONYX, Armentrout explores her world in more detail, revealing additional Luxen and Arum powers. I don't think I'll be continuing the series but there's something kind of delightfully nostalgic about this series. It feels like something you could find in one of those cheesy aughts teen series about girls with special powers. It doesn't hurt that the heroine, Katy, is genuinely likable, has an interesting hobby (book blogging), and doesn't hate every female character in the book. Even the romantic rival, Ash, has more of a complicated relationship to Katy than just pure mean girl.
There were some great twists in here and I liked the scene where Daemon "helps" her with her book blogging, but for the most part this felt needlessly long and didn't have the pacing of the first book. I ended up skimming a lot. I just really don't care for Daemon as a love interest and it's hard to read an M/F romance series where you just plain don't like the dude character. It was an interesting ride, though.
Someone told me this was the "softest" of R. Lee Smith's books and it's a good thing I can't remember who that person was, because I would give them such a talking-to. COTTONWOOD is a brutal book. A lot of Smith's books are, but COTTONWOOD is particularly insidious because it sneaks up on you. With books like THE LAST HOUR OF GANN and SCHOLOMANCE, you already know things are going to be bad. Those books plunge you into darkness and mockingly toss you a flashlight. Not COTTONWOOD. The heroine, Sarah, is so hopeful, so excited to work for an international organization that houses the aliens that came to her planet. She sings and hums like a Disney princess. She basically is a Disney princess. So tell me, what kind of horror do you think a Disney princess would feel if she walked into what she imagined would be a very grand adventure... only to find out that it's basically a concentration camp?
Yeah. That.
***SPOILERS & TRIGGER WARNINGS***
Lots of people have compared this to District 9 and I can see that. The author even addresses it in an author's note in the book (apparently she came up with the idea before the movie and then was loath to publish it because of the similarities to the movie). It's similar but also different. COTTONWOOD is a romance. It's a very dark romance, but it is a romance. It's also an allegory for, yes, concentration camps and the cruelty of N*zi scientists, and it's also a look into the differences between performative and true acts of justice. Sarah wants to help, but her ability to actually help changes and grows as she does. By the end of the book, she's a different person. She hasn't lost any of her goodness, but she's gained the ability to stand up for herself and not be so naive.
Parts of this book were beautiful. Sanford/Nk’os’a’knko was a darling. His son, T'aki was so cute. And Sarah is such a likable heroine. Even when she's being a doof. But this book is DARK. Much darker than I signed up for and if I had known how dark it was going to be, I probably wouldn't have signed up to read it at the moment because that's not really what I've been wanting to read. But like I said, COTTONWOOD sneaks up on you. I just read GANN and could handle it. I thought it would be more of the same. But this book did things that GANN didn't that I found really difficult to read. There is a lot of medical gore and medical torture that is described in pretty harsh detail. The dog dies. People close to the heroine die. Aliens are tortured (including children). Sexual abuse is described, including those of underage people. There's a rank callousness here that is hard to deny when we continually see headlines outlining more heinous crimes; R. Lee Smith sees humanity at its best and worst.
I liked this book a lot and think R. Lee Smith is a genius. But man, this book was miserable to read. I also felt the ending dragged. The "epilogue" portion was interesting but made the book feel rushed, and a couple of things happened that felt too neat. But by this point, I was so desperate for a happy ending that I didn't care. JUST GIVE ME MY HEA SO I CAN GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE. ...more
I bought this omnibus of books one and two at a thrift store. My friends and followers have been trying to get me to read this series for ages, although I think I've missed the bus on the book's popularity train. It peaked ages ago; now people are all about her vampire fantasy series (which I definitely did not like). The Lux series honestly isn't too bad for what it is. It's very much a paranormal YA romance cast in the mold of TWILIGHT, but the heroine has a lot more empowerment than most other female characters done in that vein. Katy is a book blogger, she stands up for herself, and she doesn't hate every female character who so much as breathes in the direction of her love interest.
This is basically TWILIGHT with aliens. The Lux are light people, the Arum are shadow people. They are at war and Katy's proximity to them ends up putting her in danger-- multiple times. Daemon, the love interest, is one of the most powerful of his kind, and after reading FOURTH WING, let me tell you that light beings kind of pale in comparison to shadow baes. Also, he's just such a raging asshole. Did I need a TWILIGHT where "Edward" constantly insults and sexually harasses "Bella" while doing a self-defensive light show? No.
Did I read it anyway? Of course I did.
If you're really into books like FALLEN, TWILIGHT, and HUSH HUSH, you will love this book. Actually, now that I'm saying this, I think Daemon has more in common with Patch than he does with Edward, so maybe that's a better comparison. I probably wouldn't recommend this series to anyone who isn't a die-hard YA paranormal fan, and honestly, the bonus scenes in this book just made me super glad that the books aren't dual POV. I probably won't read more in this series but I don't regret what I did read.
I'm sorry to say that this is the first book in the Prime Mating Agency series that I did not like. It was weird, even by these books' standards. Earth was populated by a bunch of copulating aliens? Melting ice caps has released a plague that caused humans to revert to some of these once-vestigial characteristics? WHAT?
Neera didn't really stand out to me as a heroine at all, and Echo felt like a blander mold of all the other heroes in this series. Usually there's something in each of these books that makes it feel special, but I'm sorry to say that that wasn't the case here, for me.
P.S. I'm still holding out for that I MARRIED A MINOTAUR book.
So every Wednesday, I do a challenge called What the Actual Fuck Wednesday, where I invite YOU to recommend me the weirdest romance and erotica books you can find. Not just to take the mickey out of them, but just because, well, it's fun. And I am very bored. I try to go into these books with an open mind and sometimes I am pleasantly surprised, but sometimes I really don't like the book in question. Either way, I am unapologetically honest.
IT'S THE FREAKING APOCALYPSE AND THIS IS MY NEW BOYFRIEND was recommended to me by my friend, Julia. And at first I thought it was like some sort of Bane-inspired fic, kind of like the Omegaverse books, but no. And then I thought it was one of those "haha I'm trolling y'all as I laugh to the bank" type books, but also no. It is its own class of "(c)literature" entirely.
ITFAATIMNB is set in the future. I guess there was a zombie invasion or whatever and the government was like, you know what we need to fix this? Drafted civilians slapped in riot gear with total martial control. Because putting guns and tactical gear in the hands of the people never leads to anything bad happening. This plan is so stupid I can only assume that this was the American government. Anyway, faster than you can say "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" these dudes are calling themselves the Ravagers and going around raping and pillaging because YOLO.*
*I bet you didn't see that coming
Our heroine, Marley, lives in some kind of compound with other survivors where they alternate between living in fear and, I guess, living in denial. They're having a wedding and someone has managed to dredge up two 2000s-era slutty club dresses. Look out, y'all. It's time to get down and PARTAY. We even shaved our gross apocalyptic leg and arm hairs. Nasty, nasty! But oh no, Ravagers LOVE weddings because they like to jus primae noctis the shit out of that (bet you didn't think there was going to be this much Latin in an erotica review). Marley and her friend Cassandra make quite the star attractions in their slutty dresses and they are hauled off, one conscious and one not, to the big bad leader of the Ravagers, Boris the Butcher, who is the kind of creep who says "I like 'em feisty."
But before they can be raped, the women are saved by this dude in a skull mask named Max. But don't huff out a sigh of relief yet. Max has already decided that Marley is his girl and her virginity will be his. But for some reason... Marley is okay with this? Because Max is young and hot and ripped? Also, they love each other now? WHAT. At first I thought they were childhood friends and he'd been searching for her this whole time, but no, it was just insta-love, which makes it extra gross when he starts referring to her virginity as a gift and talking about how much he wants to breed her. Barf.
This book kind of ended up being a nasty petri dish of all my least favorite tropes in erotica. Fetishization of virginity. Sloppy and gross sex scenes. References to the words "cream" and "juicy." (What is this? Sex, or a fucking rootbeer float?) Breeding as a fetish. Insta-love. Caveman-like hero. No emotional connections. People behaving in ways that defy reality. Sci-fi w/o world-building.
The problem with ITFAATIMNB is that it isn't funny enough to be funny-bad erotica but it isn't good enough to be funny-good erotica, so it kind of languishes in this limbo where I guess you read it ironically or you just like reading about breeding and gross caveman sex. I actually had flashbacks to my (bad) experience reading Alexa Riley erotica while reading this, so I think if you like AR books (especially the breeding ones), you will probably enjoy this author. I'm honestly shocked at how many people loved this book, tbh. No shade to them or anything-- have you seen the weird shit I enjoy?-- but it makes me feel like I'm living in some sort of bizarro alt-reality where everything sucks.
Okay, so the last book I read by this author, I did not like at all. But in my defense, I bought the omnibus edition of this series before I picked up FROM BLOOD AND ASH, and after that book ended up being a huge no for me, I kind of tabled this book and forgot about it... until I was going through my book stash, saw the shimmery cover mocking me from the pile, and thought, Hmm, I should probably give this a go before I sell it back to the store.
First, let's get one thing out of the way. OBSIDIAN is a TWILIGHT knockoff in a long line of TWILIGHT knockoffs. To its credit, I think it's one of the better ones. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a good alien romance, and I loved Katy, the book blogger heroine. Katy brings to the table what Bella did not, and in a lot of ways, she is the saving grace of this book. But there are many TWILIGHT similarities: Katy moves to somewhere rainy (West Virginia) from somewhere sunny and hot (Florida); the not-human guy basically lives in a commune with a bunch of not-human people who everyone is super suspicious about, one of whom is a manic pixie dream girl "sister" and the other, a beautiful ex-rival; he saves her from being run over by a truck and reveals his powers; there are "bad" versions of the not-human guy and one of them lengthily tries to kill her; the not-human guy is referred to as an angel in her half-dead euphoria; Katy and her human friends go shopping for a dance and something creepy happens, etc. etc.
The similarities may be numerous, but Armentrout always puts her own spin on the situation, so it never feels like one of the more blatant copies (not naming names, but I once read a Twiclone that was basically a beat for beat remix of TWILIGHT-- this was definitely not that). Instead, it kind of feels more like an homage: I mean, there's literally a line in here making fun of the "Do I dazzle you?" line. So I feel like Armentrout, to some extent, knew what she was doing. Katy has more of a relationship with her mom in this book than Bella did with either of her parents and I liked the portrayal of what it's like living with a single parent who works all day. Katy stands up for herself and doesn't let Daemon push her around, which is just SO refreshing compared to some of the other heroines in this genre of books who just go total doormat because abs. There's also more of a PG-13 edge to this book, including a shirtless makeout scene, and a rather UST-ridden scene involving a swimming hole.
I do think the lore revolving around the Arum and the Luxen is a little weak, and the "don't say anything or the government will get you" was sooo early aughts Matrix-era paranoia. But when the moment in the story came when I realized why this book was called OBSIDIAN, I was like O.M.G. Honestly, if Daemon wasn't SUCH an immature little shit for 50% of this book, I probably would have given this four or five stars for how compulsively readable it was. But Daemon was such a shit. I don't mind villainous heroes or antiheroes, but I don't like heroes who are just straight up mean to the heroine. He became tolerable after he and the heroine actually had some real conversations, but he was still saying mean shit right up to the end. I know to some extent this is a me thing (I don't really like arrogant heroes and it's rather clear this author does), but man. There's just no escaping it.
Will I be reading the sequel anyway? Oh yeah. Bring on the beta quartz and the creepy shadow men.
ENTHRALLED takes place right where the last book ends. Ketahn is still being hunted by the evol spider queen who wants to make him her mate. They also plan to wake up the rest of the humans who crash-landed on the Vrix planet and are still in cryosleep. Throughout all of this, Ivy and Ketahn's relationship deepens as they navigate their own growing feelings for one another amidst all these obstacles.
I didn't expect to like these books as much as I do. I hate spiders, okay? Hate, hate, hate. When I found out this was an alien spider romance with SEX, my ovaries shriveled up and wailed, "NOOOO." I'm still not 100% on board with that, but I fell in love with the world-building, which is some of the most inventive I've seen in an alien romance, the realistic behaviors of all the characters (human and non), and the high stakes. The spider queen is one of the most terrifying villains EVER.
Major warning that this book has some unexpectedly brutal moments. For every lovey-dovey scene between the leads, there's attempted sexual assault, gory battle scenes, and bad people (and spiders) doing bad things. It's never gratuitous, but you also definitely spend more time than you might like biting your nails over these characters and their fates.
I can't believe I have to wait until fucking January for the sequel. *sobs*
So, this was recommended to me for my What the Actual Fuck Wednesday project where I read and review weird romance novels and erotica and then talk about them. I always post a review and sometimes I post a video on Instagram. Originally, I intended to do a video for this one but (baby) it's cold outside and I started reading this late and also... there's just not a lot to talk about this one. It's an alien romance and really not all that weird, apart from the fact that the aliens in question drink blood, eat grubs, and seem to resemble lizard rock demons with, like, sentient metal armor. Maybe it's weird I don't think that's weird.
Anyway, this is a first contact book and Tori, the heroine, is a doctor dammit, not a diplomat (as a Star Trek fan, I'm high key disappointed that no one made that joke). Which is why she's not all that happy to be roped into negotiations with the Demons. Her point of contact is the hero, Aderus. He and his people are fleeing an invading threat that basically threatens to decimate their world. All their females are captive and they need medical intervention and also military backup. And the humans want their fancy-pants technology because humans gonna hum.
The whole time I was reading this, I kept thinking about Regina Abel, who, apart from the X-rated Star Trek fanfiction I read on fanfic dot net (because Ao3 didn't exist yet), she was the author who kind of opened the gates to alien romance/erotica for me. I really like her heroes and I think that (most of the time) they have good chemistry with the heroines. I didn't really feel that here. Aderus was kind of a dick. He's mean to Tori and I wasn't all that happy that he basically slaps her with biotech without (1) asking for her consent or (2) telling her what it is beforehand. Courtship in their species also seems to be kind of rapey. There's sexual dimorphism and females are incredibly vicious and aggressive and males are basically subordinate, and I guess males are supposed to fight the females during to prove their worthiness to "breed". And it adds some weird undercurrents to their relationship that are mostly just glossed over, except for the hero basically thinking, "Hmm, it's hotter when the female is willing and this hits different!"
Uhhh...
This wasn't a bad book but I wasn't really a fan of it. I thought the author was inventive in her world-building but it could have been explored better, and Tori didn't really have much personality. She kind of reminded me of those painfully naive heroines from 90s futuristic/paranormal romance, where even in more traditionally "masculine" job descriptions, they still have to remind you "oops, I'm just a woman, tee hee" every five seconds. Like, I never really got the impression that Tori was allowed to exist as a character with motivations that really went beyond how they intersected with the hero and his people. She felt both interchangeable and replaceable. I don't think I'll be continuing with the series.
The weakest installment of the three so far, unfortunately. I really liked the set-up. Humans are living as illegal colonists on a planet that's populated by birdmen and minotaurs (Zelconians and Yurus, to you). Because of their illegal status, they can't get any assistance from their Federation stand-in (the UPO-- I forget what it stands for), even though the Yurus are becoming hostile and planning attacks.
When Luana appeals to the Zelconians, who are psychic birdmen, they are sympathetic but basically say their hands are tied. Little does she know that they've made a separate appeal of their own to the UPO out of concern of the minotaurs and the answer is basically, marry one of the hoomans and then we can recognize them as being legal citizens and we can get involved without making it a big to-do. And conveniently, one of the birdmen is half-human/half-bird and he has a peen instead of a cloaca and lips instead of a beak, so not only can he bang, he can also, you know, not peck her while they bang. Also, they're soulmates because apparently he imprinted on her at first sight. Which feels like insta-love to me, but IDK. I don't make the rules.
I think I would have liked this a lot more if the heroine's personality expanded beyond "I'm horny for birds!" The heroine in LIZARDMAN was really into farming and agriculture, and the heroine in NAGA was a huntress who experienced a thrill in taking down challenging prey. This heroine is a doctor but she doesn't actually spend a whole lot of time doctoring. Most of it is spent lusting after her husband, Dakas. And to be fair, Dakas is pretty adorable. There's this hilarious scene where he tries to figure out how to use her shower and water gets everywhere and then she finds him in a water-soaked bathroom looking like a guilty puppy. But then there's also birding (read: birdmen vomiting food into each other's mouths) and there's this icky part of their bond where it apparently acts as a shock collar, causing pain if either of them ever considers cheating, which felt kind of gross to me.
Also, as I said, Luana's whole personality is I REALLY WANT TO FUCK THAT BIRDMAN.
So this one ended up falling short for me. I do wonder if maybe there's going to be a follow-up about the minotaur aliens. I pinged the author on Twitter and she gave me a very teasing response, which I'm choosing to infer means YES. There's an I MARRIED A MINOTAUR in my future. Which, if true, I'm very excited about. I still loved books one and two but I wasn't really impressed by this one at all.
I bought this because it was recommended to me for one of my weekly features: What the Actual F*** Wednesday, where I ask people to recommend some of the weirdest erotica and romance novels out there. Also, Strangelove by Depeche Mode is one of my favorite songs ever and I like my romances with a generous side of pew pew pew.
STRANGE LOVE is a must-read for anyone who likes Regina Abel because the premise is pretty similar. Zylar, who sounds like something balloons might be made out of despite being a lizard man with a ruff, is seeking a mate as part of this pair-bonding program. However, his AI takes him to the wrong planet and he ends up rounding up a human and her dog from, you guessed it, Earth.
Beryl and Snaps are implanted with a primitive translation feature that allows the three of them to understand each other. Snaps's dialogue is BRILLIANT. My friend told me that it was like the dog from Up and she wasn't exaggerating. Snaps is seriously one of the best things about this book and his dialogue had me laughing so hard.
Unlike the Abel books, however, the alien bonding isn't that simple. Beryl has to go through a series of competitions and anyone can make a play for her, really. Including Zylar's jerk brother, Rhyzen (??? I forget his name-- mostly because I kept thinking of him as That One Flavork). TOF will do anything to get the strongest mate for himself, including playing dirty, which means Zylar's in danger.
I liked this book a lot-- although I did think it slowed down in the last act. I also really didn't care for the sex scenes. I'm sorry to those who liked them but I thought they were gross. My favorite things about this book were Snaps (#SnapsForPresident) and what a sweetheart Zylar was. HE WAS THE BEST AND WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR HIS WOMAN. Beryl was also a really strong heroine and I respected that, although I did think it was a little unrealistic how chill she was with her situation.
Overall, this was a relatively short and sweet book and I liked it. Not sure if I'd read further, though.
I picked up I MARRIED A LIZARDMAN fully expecting to hate it, so you can imagine my surprise when it ended up being an utterly charming and well-developed alien romance that was basically like a typical marriage of convenience plot with dashes of Harvest Moon in space. I was prepared to snark and struggle my way through the book and instead I was like WHERE'S THE SEQUEL I NEED IT NOW.
I MARRIED A NAGA is a totally different, uh, kettle of snakes than LIZARDMAN. Sequels like this can be hard because book one snags people in for the novelty, but then you don't want to just churn out the same cookie cutter plot for all the sequels, either. That gets old. To my surprise, though, I MARRIED A NAGA has a totally different and, yet, no less exciting plot than the other book in the series.
Serena is a hunter for the federation and they've just been granted exclusive access to a planet filled with snake men called Trangor. The snake men (Ordosians) are allowing them to hunt these menacing scorpion creatures called Flayers that, as the apex predators on the planet, are causing population issues with more vulnerable species. They can hunt in any area that isn't "off-limits" because land is sacred to the Ordosians and punishment for trespass is severe (read: death).
This totally seems fine until Serena sees a Flayer chasing a female Ordosian and her baby. Obviously she can't just stand by and let them both be killed, so she traipses into the forbidden zone to save their lives. And how do they repay her? By hauling her into the clan to punish her for her trespass. Luckily, the Ordosians aren't assholes and the male, Szaro, actually had been watching her hunt and quickly sized her up as a pretty chill lady. So they tell her that there is technically a loophole: if she marries an Ordosian and becomes one of them through marriage, she won't have to die. Hooray!
Like LIZARDMAN, this is also a marriage of convenience, but the circumstances are totally different. I liked that Serena was a hunter and physically active (yoga, rhythm gymnastics). She's also a beast of a woman, standing at 6'1", which as a tall lady (although not that tall!), I really appreciated. The way that Szaro and Serena bond over hunting and their mutual love of the land is honestly enchanting. It's like an interstellar park ranger romance. How can you hate on a park ranger? YOU CAN'T.
There's some intense last-act drama involving some poaching where you get to see just how shit-in-your-pants terrifying Szaro can be when his fangs are bared, along with some relationship tension (no spoilers). I love all the creativity that goes into these books and the world-building. It really makes such a difference and makes the books feel so much more immersive. All the anatomical details (ribbed for her pleasure, ladies) and the cultural misunderstandings were really interesting, and unlike some of these bizarro romances where I don't get the hype (I'm looking at YOU, MORNING GLORY MILKING FARM), with these books I can totally understand why people love them as much as they do. I can't wait to read the follow-up, I MARRIED A BIRDMAN.
This book was recommended to me as part of my What the Actual Fuck Wednesday project where I seek out weird romance and erotica novels and read and review them on a weekly basis. I was initially pretty skeeved out by ENSNARED because I am a bona fide arachnophobe. I hate spiders and the idea of reading about some plucky heroine fucking one as part of her interstellar sexcapades sounded like nightmare fuel. But I made the sacrifice and prepared for everything to be spiders.
And everything was spiders. But-- surprisingly-- I did not scream or pull my hair out or run away or anything else I thought I might do. In fact... I was slowly drawn into this spider romance the same way I was drawn into Regina Abel's snake, bird, and lizard romances. Because the "spider" in this book is really more of a spider/centaur/man hybrid (at one point, the heroine refers to him as an "arachnotaur") and yes, he has a dick. But it's a retractable dick that comes out of a slit. Whoopee.
Lest you think that this is purely porn, it is not. In fact, it features one of the best developed worlds I've seen in a science fiction alien romance. The hero is a spider man creature who is part of this spider colony. Their species is actually called the "vrix" but you know, spiders. Anyway, the females are bigger and more powerful and the queen is the most powerful of all and she wants to mate with our hero, whose name is Kehtan, and she is willing to beat, bully, and blackmail him into it, whether he wants it or not (not).
The heroine, Ivy, was a colonist who was meant to go to another planet but crash-landed on this one. Her backstory is incredibly sad and actually tugged at my heart. You can tell why she was so desperate to get away and why she was willing to leave behind everything. Kehtan accidentally awakens her from her cryosleep and she (understandably) freaks out, but once she realizes he doesn't intend on eating her, they gradually reach an understanding and even start to communicate and, gasp, like each other.
So some thoughts about the book. I thought it took a LONG time to get moving and sometimes it could be really slow-paced and dense. There's a lot to cut your teeth on in this book and even though I really appreciate all the details and how much thought went into them, it affected the pacing at times. I loved the language, though, and how Ivy and Kehtan gradually start to communicate. It was done so well, and so realistically, and I was really impressed. I also really liked the heroine. I felt like people were really hard on her. I mean, you find out that everyone you know and love is probably dead AND you're face to face with a spider man AND all you have to eat is weird food and grubs that you have no idea will make you sick AND you have no clothes and no supplies AND you have to learn a new language AND you're traumatized by past shit AND also all of your friends and loved ones are dead?? Like, yeah, she whined and cried and complained-- BUT SO WOULD I. So would anyone, honestly. Really, people are so hard on heroines, am I right? If anything warrants emotional breakdown, it is this exact situation.
The romance was also really well done and kind of slow-burn (not super slow but it's not insta-love either). Kehtan kind of goes from thinking of her as a sort of pet to feeling something more for her once he realizes how sentient she is, which-- again-- makes sense. The erotic scenes were also-- decent? I found it interesting that these spider people have rope bondage as part of their mating ritual. Weirdly, it makes sense and weirdly, it was sort of hot. Until I remembered he was a spider and not just a dude who had as many arms as he has six pack muscles and then I may have freaked out a little. YAAAAAH.
Overall, this was really good. Much better than I was expecting it to be, and the cover is a really fun homage to the clinch covers of bodice-rippers of yore. I was kind of torn between a three and a four and ultimately I'm rounding down to a three just because it didn't quite hit the mark for me but it is a very high three and I'm totally reading the sequel. My God, I can't believe this author made me like spiders.
I saw this book on Instagram and was instantly intrigued because while the cover screamed "MONSTEROTICA!" the blurb seemed way more sophisticated. It was kind of giving me LAST HOUR OF GANN and RADIANCE vibes, two books I loved. The premise is also great, too. Think Harvest Moon: In Space. Susan is from a human colony on a planet called Meterion but only first and second daughters get married and land. Third daughters like her get to become indentured servants-- if they're lucky.
Because of this, Susan agrees to a marriage match between the Prime Mating Agency, which basically pairs biocompatible humans with aliens on other planets in economically beneficial arranged marriages.
Susan ends up going to a planet that begins with an X-- I can't remember what it's called. Xenia? Xerces? Something like that. Anyway, it's populated by aliens called Altdurians that are hunter-gatherers who live off the land. It's incredibly fertile land and people would like to use it for farming and part of Susan's goal in going there is to convince the aliens about its potential.
Susan's husband, Olix, is a total bae. He's the clan leader and an incredibly well respected hunter. He's also so respectful that he basically puts all human men to shame. Sign me up for the next flight out to Lizardmandia. After an awkward wedding ceremony and an awkward wedding night, they find that each other's company is incredibly agreeable. The only problem is the farming. Altdurians associate it with their colonizers, who forced them to dig in the dirt and poisoned the land with harsh chemicals. So farming as seen as base, distasteful, and harmful at best-- oh no.
I'm just going to go ahead and list out some of the things that I really liked/found humorous about this book.
Usually when I really enjoy a book, I want allllll my friends to read it, too. But R. Lee Smith is not an author I would actually recommend to most people. All of her books are quite long, usually 400+ pages (sometimes close to 1,000), which is a deal-breaker for some. And then there's the content: vicious, brutal, violent, and often filled with gross sex and dub- or non-con. I don't personally find many of the sex scenes in her books erotic but they are haunting and fascinating. She has a keen insight into the human mind and what makes people do what they do, and her ability to build and craft inhuman worlds with believable details and a rich tapestry of culture inspires awe and envy.
So, you know, if that's something you think you'd be into, check her work out. But if not, abandon all hope ye who enter.
I buddy-read this book with my friend, Caro, who shares my love for this author. I would say that this book isn't quite as brutal or frustrating as SCHOLOMANCE or GANN for the most part, although there were a few scenes peppered in that exceeded the aforementioned in terms of blood splatter and gore. The interesting thing about HEAT is that it is basically two very different books crammed into one. On the one hand, you have the story about Kane: prisoner, chemist, and slaver, who has come to the Earth to make street drugs out of human brains, while helping himself to the local flavor. The local flavor being Raven, his punk, purple-haired love slave, and Sue-Eye, a blonde biker chick he picked up at a bar to be his #2. On the other hand, you have Tagen and Daria's story. Tagen is the police officer who is tasked with hauling Kane in, and Daria is the human he ends up crashing with while trying to get his bearings.
The twist is that, for Tagen at least, Earth isn't what either of them expected. Jotan aliens hadn't been to Earth since the Bronze age, and were expecting spears and not-- well, handguns and automobiles. Also, it's hot because global warming sucks, and when they go to the normally cool PNW, it's hotter than Hades. And unfortunately for Tagen and Kane and every female human who ends up in contact with them, hot temperatures put Jotans into violent, mind-blistering heat. So, there's that.
Kane is probably one of the most fun characters I've read about in a while. He's just so evil, but the author does a good job kind of humanizing him a little, and his relationship with Raven definitely comes across as having a Joker/Harley Quinn dynamic where you tell yourself, yes, it's abuse, but if he has a human side to him at all, she's probably the one person who ever receives the benefit of it. Their romance is infinitely more interesting and fascinating than Daria and Tagen's, which is cute but bland. Their sex scenes end up feeling pretty repetitive, and I found myself skimming over some of their interactions because I wanted to see what Kane, Raven, and Sue-Eye were getting up to.
Overall, I would say that this is an excellent work but it probably needed to be shaved down a little. Some of those Daria/Tagen scenes could have been cut. The Kane chapters, on the other hand, were perfect, with Smith building up an atmosphere of dread that could put even Stephen King to shame. I kept thinking what a great TV mini-series this book would be because it has a little bit of everything: action, romance, horror, shoot-em-ups, adventure, sex-- the whole nine yards. It's dark and it's violent and sometimes it's cruel, but the author's trademark dark humor and incredibly deep insights into humanity and the world totally make it worth it, imo.
The Planet of Desire series is so weird that I kind of can't help but love it. Normally books that are all smut don't really do it for me (I'm just not super into that), but one thing I like about these books is the intense emotional connection that ends up building between the leads with some truly creative world-building in the background. It's kind of like X-rated Star Trek fic, in a way. Like, I could totally see this happening in one of those weird eps that fans prefer to think of as non-canon. "Oops, we landed on a horny planet and ended up fucking our way through the Sex Olympics while the pervy overlords watched and judged us" definitely feels like a Kirk move.
And it's exactly what happens here. Assura is part of the human crew of the ship that crashed on a planet whose toxic atmosphere makes everyone horny unless they take the antidote developed by the god-like and sex-loving Fellamana who reside there. Their ship was attacked by the Ssedez, gold scaled humanoids who were hunted to near extinction by the humans and have a lot of reason to hate our guts. But ever since their commander, Oten, mated with a human, he's become a lot more sympathetic towards the human cause.
So Assura is being guarded by Gahnin, whose mate was killed by humans. And it's hot and he's horny and you can imagine what happens. Although then he and Assura end up fighting and violence is not permitted on the Horny Planet, so they're dragged in for punishment: competing in the sex olympics (ha! bet you thought I was joking about that) so they aren't left to suffer without the antidote. And it seems like things might be pretty good except Gahnin has a lot of angst and mixed feelings about his attraction to a human and Assura has demons and past loves of her own that she needs to confront.
I actually liked this book a little more than the previous book. It wasn't as slow to start and it was a lot darker. There's a pretty twisted villain and some serious fucked-up shit. I saw some critical reviews taking issue with Assura's dark past and I guess how you feel about that will depend on whether you think people who have done bad things can be redeemed or even want to read about that. I don't mind it in fiction because fiction, to me, is a fantasy (and not, you know, something I have to think about in terms of real-world consequences), but I get that people who have maybe dealt with abusers might find that sort of storyline triggering. So, that's something to keep in mind when picking this up, I guess.
Overall, this series is pretty fun. It's porn with plot (PWP) and I'm okay with that. I'll probably read the next book soonish because I waited too long between #1 and #2 and forgot a lot of what happened.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
>
Books:
science-fiction-futuristic-romance
(66)
Loading...
