User Profile

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!

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.