Reviews and Comments

This might actually be worse than Shades of Grey. There’s a lot of telling-not-showing and basic phrasing issues that an editor should have caught; the exposition is sloppy; the protagonist doesn’t garner a lot of sympathy with her childishness; and (yeah, I am always going to comment on this) there’s absolutely no discussion of consent. On top of that, the narrator for the audiobook is a bad fit for this story, reading it with the tone of a children’s book and mispronouncing some pretty important words.

I see this author has other books out. Maybe this was practice?

It was a nice surprise for me that this was part of a series. I’ve read one of the later books—Mark’s story—so I knew how Ash would end up, once I realized. I still enjoyed it.

I peeked at other titles, and it looks like Smite gets a book, too, which is something to look forward to

This is an excellent story, told from the point of view of a murderbot who just wants to be left alone and watch entertainment feeds. The most relatable character ever, essentially.

There is action and adventure, and that is also good!

The sexism issues from the first book continue, and the voice the audiobook performer uses for April is a little grating. The story is OK. The characters are OK. But I'm beginning to think this series isn't my thing.

This is ... OK. It's pretty standard paranormal romance fare, at pretty standard paranormal romance quality; though I find it really irritating that shifters work in such a boringly sexist way. "Protect the females," meh. The whole concept of female shifters "going into heat" is super gross and unnecessary. It detracts a lot from the story for me.

More irritating is how easily the women in these books go along with it. "Oooh, a big strong protector 😍" - ughhhhh.

I did end up giving it an extra star, though, because the audiobook is performed so well.

I like Courtney Milan. "I will ease you into a nice Regency romance series," she says to unsuspecting readers. "Oh, there are a few ladies who are spunky, but overall, we're just going to have a nice time and talk about proper manners and not really subvert the genre all that much." The reader reads on. "Well, yes, this lady is actually a scientist, and I'm going to make a point about women in science that holds true today. And, yes, the next book is about a suffragette, but we're all in favor of women voting anyway." And then BAM she's like "also, there are lesbians" and "hey, look at this modern commentary," and I'm just saying, I have started to love these books very, very much.

Regency and Victorian romances tend to be three-star affairs for me, but this gets an extra star for making me burst suddenly, unexpectedly, and rather loudly into tears. Very well done.

Pride and Prejudice and Magic. In other words, a very nice Regency-style romance with fantastic elements.

I mean, the ending was telegraphed from, like, book 3, but it was still really nice to read it.