Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Corsair Brothers #4

Corsairs: Mathiras

Rate this book
Someone is illegally stealing humans from their home world and cloning them.

For months, we’ve been hunting this ring of criminals and the end is in sight. I’m separating from my brothers and taking my ship to track down the bad guys.

One small problem — Helen insists upon joining me on this dangerous mission.

Helen herself is a clone, created to be an object of beauty. She’s not safe if she goes with me, as her kind are coveted all across the universe. But she’s not interested in staying safe. She’s interested in staying at my side…and tempting me to kiss her.

And kef me, is it ever a temptation.

Am I really going to run headlong into danger with the universe’s most beguiling female at my side? Am I going to be able to resist her charms?

(I think we all know the answers to those questions.)

566 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 29, 2022

Loading interface...
Loading interface...

About the author

Ruby Dixon

145 books16.4k followers
Ruby Dixon is an author of Science Fiction Romance. She likes fated mates, baby-filled epilogues, and cinnamon roll heroes. She also likes to write biographies of herself in the third person, because it feels more important that way.

Ruby also loves coffee and dirty books and will probably be a cat lady at some point. :)

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
1,389 (45%)
4 stars
958 (31%)
3 stars
535 (17%)
2 stars
138 (4%)
1 star
43 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 263 reviews
Profile Image for Tami.
Author 18 books2,690 followers
August 30, 2022
Mit 566 Seiten war es mir definitiv zu lang. Und ein wenig zu abgedreht, selbst für mich. 😂 Dafür war der Plot total spannend, auch wenn das Buch teilweise einige Längen hatte.
August 9, 2023
Witless heroine!



The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: ❤️💙💚
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗
World building: 🌏🌍🌏🌎
Character development: 🤓😉
Narration: 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration Type: Dual Narration

The Hero: Mathiras - he, along with his two brothers and their mates are corsairs. His little sister, whom is adopted and human is also a corsair on her own ship with her mate and crew. In the past, they teamed up with Lord Straik to retrieve a lost cargo vessel and found that it was full of illegal clones. Now they are going after the people behind the clones to try to shut down the whole operation.

The heroine: Helen - she, along with several human women were aboard that cargo vessel. Most of the women were stolen from Earth and had been luring other vessels in and robbing them after the aliens that took them left the vessel which had broken down and was drifting in space. However, Helen is actually an alien clone so she had a lot of blanks in her memories and was often a bit of an airhead. She is meek and has a huge crush on Mathiras.

The Story: Mathiras knows that this is one of their most dangerous missions, but the crews of the Starlit Gaze and the Little Sister think that it is best if they split up to follow different leads to the slavers. Mathiras wants Helen to stay where it is safe on Jerrod’s salvage station, but she insists on staying with him and going after the cloning operation. He had promised Helen before that he would never leave her behind, so she holds him to his promise.

This book is told in dual points of view via dual narration and was narrated by Hollie Jackson and Mason Lloyd. They have done the narration on all of Ruby Dixon’s Ice Planet Barbarian’s books and always do a terrific job. Hollie is great at doing different voices for different characters and has a perfect voice for ditzy Helen. I also love the way Mason speaks as these alien men, his cadence is perfect for them.

I like these Corsairs stories, since I am kind of over the whole abducted by aliens and ended up on a primitive planet kind of story. I love that they take place on spaceships, and space stations. They have a lot of action and adventure and usually have such terrific characters.

Helen was a bit of a whiny airhead at the start of this book, Mathiras was attracted to her because she was so beautiful and they were stuck in a small pod together for a while, but she was so innocent and ditzy. She was so naïve and clueless, which got on my nerves after a while. I can’t understand how an intelligent person can be attracted to such a dunce sometimes, but men do it all the time.

It turns out that Helen isn’t always as stupid as she sometimes seems though and is much more fierce that you would expect. Though I must say that I nearly DNF this one a few times. I kept stopping and starting the audiobook to watch instagram reels because I couldn’t take Helen being such an airhead. Hollie did a wonderful job on her voice, which would have been great as a side character, but as the main character I just couldn’t take it. I usually love Ruby Dixon but this one was hard for me. I saw some very good reviews and some people love Helen, so maybe it was the fact that Hollie did such a good job at the dingbat voice that it made her sound twice as much of an airhead than if you were just reading the book.

Blog|Goodreads|Facebook|Instagram|Twitter|BookBub
Profile Image for ritika.
472 reviews287 followers
August 2, 2022
the urge to take helen's rolling pin and whack her with it
Profile Image for Mara.
1,824 reviews4,185 followers
July 5, 2022
Helen has to be one of my favorite Ruby heroines - I loved the exploration of how innocence or naivete is not the same thing as being a child, and I loved her & Mathiras finding a dynamic that worked for both of them. Very fun action plot and a VERY INTRIGUING RUBYVERSE SET UP AT THE END... Niri what are you up to????
Profile Image for Samantha.
398 reviews118 followers
August 14, 2023
⭐⭐
2 stars.


➕ What I liked :


The part of the plot with the space stations and the criminal elements was rather interesting.


That the characters were trying to save people.

The heroine did not get pregnant or have babies.

The hero was patient with the heroine.

The heroine was not a damsel in distress.

The heroine protects the hero and can protect herself.

The mention of human males (clones.)








➖ What I disliked:



The heroine is a weird combination of a clingy teenager ... a airhead and Xena the warrior princess/Beatrix "the Bride" Kiddo.

The heroine was too much on many different levels.
(Too tenacious/incessant, too clingy, too over the top, too childish, too immature, too reckless, too innocent etc.)

The heroine was also too much/over the top in other ways … she was a super assassin/bodyguard and also a walking talking sex toy/sex doll and a pleasure slave (or intended to be pleasure slave) with multiple pleasure spots/clits all over her body.


I always prefer to read about confident and capable heroines no matter their looks or size/shape etc.
But the heroine was over the top in that area (confidence) the heroine is so overconfident.

Another thing I disliked because I find it perplexing.... Why
would the Qura'aki be so sought after by more or less all the different kinds of aliens in these books/series Universe ?
(It is not as if the slave owners care about their sex slaves pleasure or comfort etc.)

And why would the Qura'aki be viewed as fair/beautiful by more or less all the different kinds of aliens in these books/series Universe ?
Even the Ooli (frog like aliens) Lrulti (caterpillar like aliens) etc. (non humanoid or less humanoid aliens)
Like all the different kinds of aliens in these books/series Universe find the exact same thing fair/beautiful?
And this Qura'aki alien species and their clones happens to look a lot like a fashion model (tall and slender and human like… with pouty and full mouth and extremely beautiful.)
None of this is explained or hinted at being explained. (so many different plot holes)


The other women sheltered the heroine on their space ship, but why after 3 years was she still so naive and immature and she has very little to no growth with this in the book…she is very clueless about so many things in so much of the book.

The physical relationship between Mathiras and Helen is rather cringe… but also problematic because the heroine is so clueless and sheltered and innocent.

The hero was kind of a underdeveloped character he needed more depth and more personality.

Other than one flashback nothing is told/shown about the time Mathiras and Helen spent alone when they left the Star in an escape pod.
A missed opportunity to include more action and character development (for both main characters.)


The why and how of why the main characters feel in love was lacking and unconvincing and also kind of weird for different reasons and there is very little to no chemistry between the main characters.
(Why did they fall for each other …. other than Helen being beautiful and Mathiras handsome.)



The incessant talk about babies and pregnancy.
(Even the alien “cat” had kittens.)


Repetitive.

Dragged.

The story was too long.
Profile Image for Megan.
554 reviews35 followers
July 31, 2022
I was not feeling this one. At all.

Like the Adiron/Jade installment, the plot felt very "discover as you go." The main tension in Mathiras and Helen's relationship is her innocence, which sort of plays into an "age" issue depending on how one classifies maturity. So, this had to be addressed in text, and Ruby understood this very well.

Unfortunately, the way she went about "maturing" Helen was just weird and unsatisfying. Essentially, she went the route of "Helen has been modified genetically to be both extra pleasure-oriented AND physically adept at snapping necks. Therefore, because she is deadly and can save Mathiras, and because she is biologically adult, she is adult and there is no issue with her banging."

And while I personally am not one to grab the pitchforks the moment there's a questionable age gap or uneven power dynamics between fictional couples, I did think this conflict could have been solved in a wayyy less contrived manner. The entire plot with Helen going into sleeper cell mode and murdering indiscriminately was dumb and unsatisfying.

I would have vastly preferred a plot centered around Helen looking for details on her species, the qura'aki, and coming into her own during this journey with Mathiras at her side. It would have added a lot of cool lore to the universe while also focusing Helen's growth/readiness for sexual and romantic intimacy less on the fact of her physical state (genetics, physical age) and more on her emotional state (lived experience, mental resilience, self-reflection). Because the issue with Helen/Mathiras was always that of innocence and experience, not the age of her body, this would've been a more satisfying story, in my opinion.

The rest of my complaints are really about how damn bored I was throughout. The story took way too long and was too unfocused. Zebah and Bethiah were fun additions, but Mathiras felt off. His voice with Helen felt more like a father mentoring a child than a lover.
Profile Image for Robin (Bridge Four).
1,782 reviews1,590 followers
July 19, 2023
This review was originally posted on Books of My Heart

Review copy was received from Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Corsairs: Matharis is the last boon in the Corsair Brothers series following a group of privateering brothers who stumbled on a slaving operation and go out into space with their potential mates to get to the bottom of who is making clones and how to keep the women they found on the delivery ship full of clones safe.

Helen is adorable.  She has no filter and says just about anything that comes into her mind, whether it is appropriate to share or not.  Most of the time it is endearing, a few times it was a little too much over the top.  Helen has been the most sheltered of the women, due to her naiveté.  Rudy Dixon does a good job of why Helen's sheltered life makes her innocent but not young.

Mathiras is leader of the brothers.  He is always in charge and because of that is often very serious.  We get to see a softer side of Mathiras as he allows himself to explore the feelings he has for Helen when they embark on an information finding mission.  The thing is when you start asking questions about a powerful operation of people doing illegal things they start to send people after you.  Helen and Mathiras are now pretty big targets as the head of the operation wants Helen back to clone more of her and Mathiras dead.

Helen's PoVs were my favorites.  The way her mind works was a lot of fun and she says so many shocking things to her friends that I laughed more than once.  She is clever and proved she was an adult in the thought processes she has and how she planned for being clone traveling considering what kind of disguised was needed.  Helen is also just innocent as she has not seen much death or the greater bits of space out there.  It is mostly adorable throughout most of the story and at times it did get a little cringe.

Helen's book isn't one of a damsel in distress and I like what they were able to do with her character to make her more than just an innocent to protect.  It was a good way to show how the cloning operation were expanding and taking some 'special' orders.
“My purpose is to take down bad guys and kiss Mathiras, and I’m ready for both.”

I am okay with the ending of this set in the series.  Overall I liked how all of the brothers and their mates have a way of sticking together to raise families.  I'm sure we will see a few of the other characters from this book again.  Especially the crazy cousin Bethiah as she searches for the 'boyfriend' that is running away from her and establishing more colonies for the saved human clones.  I look forward to them as this has been a really fun series overall.

Blue aliens in space, still my kink.

Narration:
Holly Jackson and Mason Lloyd are a stable to the Ice Planet Barbarian and Corsairs series.  They do a great job at capturing both the fun and the sexiness in their narrations.  I always like the dual PoVs in the story and how well these two blend their performances.  The words at clear, the emotions are conveyed and each story has something special added to it when narrated. I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed.

Listen to a clip HERE.
Profile Image for Stephanie.
769 reviews1,097 followers
September 21, 2022
Book 4 of the Corsair Brothers series was definitely my favorite and WORTH THE WAIT.

Finally we get the story of Mathiras - the oldest brother, who's stern and stodgy - and Helen, the sweet, naïve, rare clone.

Helen was awakened a few years ago with no memories, but with the brain/body of an adult. This puts her in a more vulnerable position - she's literally never been alone, she doesn't understand a lot things, she doesn't have many learned life experiences. So while she's crushing hard on Mathiras and he's very attracted to her, he feels it would be wrong to act on it since she's "young". (As Helen points out, she was made to be an adult - she has the mind and body of an adult - and she's the same technical, awaken age as some of the a'ani (clone) crew from Straik.)

Mathiras is one of my favorite types of heroes: firm, serious, grumpy. But he's such a simp for Helen and doesn't protest his own feelings too much as she stands up for herself and tells him to stop treating her like a child, or like his sister, because she is neither.

Helen is a favorite heroine for sure. She's been a highlight of all books so far - her innocent non-existent filter creating a lot of funny moments. The twist that

Really, really loved this one!
Profile Image for Brandy.
681 reviews32 followers
August 10, 2022
Characters: Helen and Mathiras


Ugh I tried to like this….I really tried 🤦🏻‍♀️.

The Good:
I really liked how Mathiras was super patient with Helen….the patience of a Saint.

The Bad:
Ruby Dixon said in her author’s note that she was trying to create a character like LeeLoo from The Fifth Element for Helen, but honestly I didn’t see it. LeeLoo was very innocent and naive of the world (which in a sense Helen was) but Helen’s over sharing of intimacy, constant clinginess, her overconfidence was so irritating on my nerves.

I really tried to see Helen’s perspective, but I really wish that Helen was able to get more exposure on Risda lll for some time and was able to mentally mature before she got together with Mathiras.

Plus I really wished this story was wrapped up quicker than it was, it dragged on and on and I was really bored and couldn’t wait to get through it. I was hoping that Helen would be more mature at the end, but I didn’t feel that way.

I kept picturing the character of Cherry in the movie Cherry 2000, she was a robot that was very hollow and lacked any depth to her, she was basically a homemaker that did everything to please her husband (in and outside of the bedroom).
Profile Image for Zero (semi-hiatus).
582 reviews24 followers
September 20, 2022
I loved the plot of this book. It's been a while since I read about Ruby's Corsairs, and it was awesome seeing more about the space stations and the underground criminal elements, while the good guys were trying to save people.

The romance didn't always work for me though. I liked both main characters, but Mathiras didn't have enough personality and Helen had too much. Plus, Helen sometimes did things that were too childish for me to take her seriously as a romantic lead.
Profile Image for Jen.
132 reviews2 followers
August 30, 2022
The pacing on this one was off for me - almost all of the plot was resolved 2/3rds of the way in. Helen being too forward was a funny gimmick at first, but got real old by the end; the fact that nobody told her to keep certain things private was wild.
Profile Image for Hilda.
1,198 reviews263 followers
December 17, 2022
My purpose is to take down bad guys and kiss Mathiras, and I’m ready for both.

Helen is a treat. I loved her so much. However, at times she was more than innocent and quirky she was a little comical. Like cartoon funny. Not cute dorky innocent funny. That was a little too much. But then again she’s a different race all her own and as beautiful as Helen of Troy. Honestly, I was okay with it for the most part. It was just on some parts were she was a little cringe.

I really enjoyed this ending (kind of). I know there will be more, at least. Bethiah, the crazy cousin, is out there! Haha. But this was a very satisfying ending to the brothers saga. I know slavery and cloning slaves (in space they can) will continue to be a big thing, after all it makes a lot of money, but for now the brothers are done and it’s enough.
Profile Image for Kimmylongtime.
1,154 reviews102 followers
Read
November 25, 2023
DNF at 75% I love Ruby but it’s crazy to say this I just don’t love Mathiras. Of all the brothers he just didn’t rock my world. I kept trying but it just wasn’t working. I won’t give this a star review as I did not finish or skim so that’s unfair. If I have not finished a book or skimmed I will not rate it !!
Profile Image for Jessi.
612 reviews7 followers
July 16, 2022
I really enjoyed tagging along with the group as they traverse the seedy underbelly of the universe looking for clues and the addition of to the crew however temporarily.

At first, I almost thought this romance was written by a straight guy, though. Think of any harem anime you've ever seen where we have a partially unwilling hero and all kinds of supremely beautiful women who are just hyper focused on him. It was like that minus the harem part. Just sprinkle in some brunch daddy vibes to taste. It changes more to them being really focused on each other along the way, and it was a pretty sweet grumpy sunshine situation. It would've been nice if Helen would've evolved a bit out of her focus on Matty and developed some other goals, though.

I'll also say I was not the biggest fan of how this seems to be fetishizing child-like innocence. "Hey, guess what? Matty's gonna [insert whatever Matty's gonna do]!" "Is it time for kisses now?" "Are those the bad guys?" Just try not to say that in a high pitched 5-year-old voice. Helen's thoughts and dialogue are all put through this child-like filter with low level vocabulary, so it's hard to fully accept that she is the adult she says she is. Though she does have her rare moments where she escapes from that, and those moments are the only things trying to keep the uncomfortable feelings at bay. I get that she's not going to know some things because of her sheltered life, but she would have an adult vocabulary being constantly around other adult women. Think of how the corsairs are when they don't understand some human thing. We don't see them as child-like in that moment of ignorance because their thoughts and speech patterns are that of an adult.

I do love Helen, though, honestly. She the MVP of the whole crew all while bringing brightness with her wherever she goes. I also appreciated her character arc as she deals with who she actually is versus who she was programmed to be.

I loved the epilogue where we get to see the crew get back together and how they decided to move forward as a lot more little members will be joining them soon. I also thought it was really sweet of Matty to be concerned for Helen's comfort as everyone around her starts welcoming babies.

But most importantly, where's

Can I also just add at the end here that I feel really bad for Ooli women. Everyone always thinks they are so repulsive and the dude ones are always these horrible creeps. Justice for Ooli women!!!
Profile Image for Gisselle.
203 reviews
December 27, 2023
3.5 🌟

This one is hard for me to rate because over all I really enjoyed this, I found my self laughing uncontrollably at some points and the spice was 😘, but I had a couple things that were a little off for me.

I decided to wait for the serial to be finished and read it all at once in book form and binged it out in about 12 hours.

I enjoyed Mathiras and Helen is adorable, but one thing that was really... iffy for me and I knew it was going to be going in was that it very much the "Born Sexy Yesterday" trope in that Helen is a naive childlike super powered woman, much like Leeloo from The 5th Element.

Essentially, Helen has the mind of a child. She acts like a child, and everyone around her treats her like a child, but she is an adult woman. Mathiras basically has to decide to stop seeing her as a child because he wants to f**k her, and he can't keep lusting after her physically while also seeing her as a child. So he makes the decision to see her as an adult from there. The romance basically takes off.

It's a hard one because Helen doesn't like being treated like a child because she is an adult, but that doesn't change the fact that she....does have the mind of .... like a 7 year old. And I found that ... fairly strange, and it's one of my least favorite media/sci-fi tropes. It makes it lean even more into the trope is that she is also basically an assassin who has had her mind altered.

So while I did like the romance and the story a lot, that made me feel weird, you know?

Then there is the strange....pro-life esc rhetoric in the epilouge regarding the clones that just....didn't sit right with me, then a lot of talk about Helen feeling left out because she isn't having babies with everyone else but she is pretty solid and ok with not being pregnant so.....im not sure how to feel about the epilouge to be honest, maybe I'm just feeling sensitive considering women's rights have just be stripped away but it felt weird for there to be a whole page dedicated to Helen talking about how its wrong to "ethically terminate" the mass amount of illigal clones they just rescued because they didnt "ask to be here" and everything "deserves a chance to live"...and that soured me a little bit.

So stars lost for Born Sexy Yesterday and weird epilouge
Profile Image for Ivy Deluca.
2,306 reviews314 followers
July 17, 2022
Quick(ish) Review

If you love Ruby’s big blue heroes and maybe have a shower kink? This may be the book for you. With caveats. Lemme ‘splain.

I am a longtime reader of Ms. Dixon’s books, and I have a particular soft spot for her messakah heroes. The Corsair brothers are a ragtag band of space pirates ad they’re on a mission to take down a slavery ring. When oldest brother Mathiras met Helen, he was concerned with how innocent she was and very much treating her like a child. Helen is a clone and naive about relationships but she’s most definitely not a child. As they travel to find out info o. The slavery ring, things happen (like lots o showers) and along the way, romance happens.

This chonky serial could do with some editing down to tighten up the narrative, but there’s some sweet moments, some heat and overall, found family scenes that really ground this romance and made me happy to read it. I think it’s best for fans of this series but if you already enjoy Ms Dixon’s writing, I think you may enjoy it like I did.
Profile Image for Midniteillusion.
575 reviews42 followers
March 24, 2024
This was way too long, 250-300 pages too long. This was also one of the weaker plots fit this series, so it being the longest made it even worse.

Other than one flashback we don’t see the time Mathiras and Helen spent alone when they left the Star in an escape pod. Which was disappointing, I think this could have had great action and character development.


Oh Helen…she starts off very much like Amelia Bedlia. Very literal. Also very innocent in a way. But then part way through the character changed. This part we’re seeing has always existed, yet somehow it’s never been seen before? It’s part of her “programming” but then why is it not already present? This to me was a big plot hole in the character.
Also random things that due to her innocence and very literal understanding if things don’t make sense for her to know/understand. I good example I recall is her describing something as “like a warm fuzzy blanket”. But nowhere in this Corsair verse have we seen fuzzy blankets, everything is plas film. All of the blankets/bedding are described as plas film. She’s not human/cloned from a human so does not have those earth memories. It just didn’t make sense for her character to describe something in that sense when she’s never seen/felt/experienced it.
Very much in a similar vein is her desire in the previous books and part of this one for a baby. Even before this book we know she had never been around a baby. That she doesn’t know much about babies. She actually points this out towards the end herself. It’s such an odd thing to obsess over. Along with her thoughts on how she could manipulate Mathiras just never turned me on to her as a character.
So many other little things that one or two on their own I would be able to suspend my disbelief but all together it’s just too much and really does make this the weakest book of all the corsairs (up to this point).

I was expecting more from Mathiras too. I never really felt him fall in love with her, or her with him for that matter. She just said she wanted him, because he was who was available. Then when he finally decide she wasn’t too childlike he decided “why not?” and decided she would do. Meh

And don’t even get me started on her calling him “Matty”. Every time I saw it I cringed and just heard a whinny voice in my head. Matty is a child’s nickname. Like Matthew before it’s changed to Matt. It sounded like she was calling to a toddler every time she said it.

I was more interested in the other side characters.



Update 3/24/24: recent learned a new term for characters like Helen, BSY “born sexy yesterday”. It focuses on this weird obsessions society had of infantile adult women. Some describes a movie character in this same role as a sex crazed toddler. I instantly got it. I think that’s why is so hard for me to like or connect with Helen and this story.
Profile Image for Amanda books_ergo_sum.
445 reviews60 followers
July 8, 2022
What a good book!! I can’t tell you how much I built this book up in my head. And yet somehow it managed to exceed my ridiculously high expectations??

The last book in a spin-off series of the so so good Corsair/Risdaverse series (which are themselves spin-off series), I was so excited to start this one! The couples in this series have been amazing but, of course, Ruby Dixon saved the best (and most bonkers) couple for last!

Helen was such a unique character. She’s an alien and a clone (adult brain and body but also kind of clueless = comedy gold). She’s spent her entire life up to this point with human women on a spaceship lost in space and all of her human culture references had me dying. I mean, what’s more Ruby Dixon than aliens butchering knock knock jokes?

Helen was basically space Elle Woods. Such a sunshine-y ditz, I freaking loved her! And instead of Elle’s lawyer glow-up, turns out Helen is randomly good at kicking ass? But we learned some heartwarming lessons—you don’t always need to torture your enemies for their secrets, you can also try braiding their hair 😆

Also loved Mathiras! So starchy, so kind, and I loved how driven he was to do good. I thought they were so compatible. I was so relieved to see he was never attracted to Helen’s innocence or naivety (always hate that) and he often forgot about it completely.

Loved the steamy times. There was an absolute ton of them (Helen was such a horndog, we love that for her) and they were simultaneously super hot and really funny? There were some Good Girls in there. It was just a good time!

Also loved how sci-fi actiony this was. Spaceships, blasters, cosmopolitan space stations, futuristic cloning plotlines, rescue missions. This was straight-up fun!
16 reviews
October 25, 2022
This is my least favorite book in the Corsair Brothers Series. While I liked Helen's character in the previous books, here I just found her annoying. I get that she was innocent and didn't have much experience....at first. But halfway through the book, when she was still 100% clueless, I couldn't understand why she wasn't retaining anything. I mean even a child picks up on social cues--and she couldn't. That (plus the back story about her being programmed to protect her "owner") made me wonder whether she was truly capable of giving consent.

As a result, I found the physical relationship between Mathiras and Helen disturbing. I get that the author was making a distinction between being innocent and being a child. But because Helen was so clueless, I had a hard time seeing her as a fully functional adult, which made the intimacy problematic.

I did appreciate having the cloning ring storyline wrapped up, and I appreciated the new characters who were introduced here (I hope we hear more of their stories later). That, plus the return of characters from previous books is what kept me reading (er.....skimming.....) to the end--though I have to admit that I skipped multiple chapters at a time because the Helen and Mathiras pairing didn't work for me (and I found many of the bedroom and shower scenes cringe worthy, not sexy).
Profile Image for reya.
424 reviews25 followers
July 19, 2022
Not my favourite Corsair.

Jade & Adiron started Corsair Brothers in such a way that they'd already set the bar high. From Adi being his jolly self, Kesper getting all hot-headed to the stoic-faced Lord Straik getting pulled down a notch or two, I enjoyed every single minute of this. But Mathiras was the book I had been waiting for after Kesper's, so I remember being pretty frustrated when that did not happen. But it's okay, Lord Straik grew on me, so I won't complain about that any longer.

The glaring issue for me with Mathiras was that all of their problems relating to the illegal smuggling could've been closed at the end of the previous book or just at the beginning of this one, so that Helen and her hot alien beau got a storyline different from the rest.

I can't speak for other readers, but after three books, I was ready to move on to some other sub-plot or a new arc but I got 566 pages of off-paced romance that picked back up on the same situation. Helen was cool, but Mathiras got on my nerves. Sheesh dude, make-up your mind already!

I don't even have to say how much I love the universe RD has built in her books but this one wasn't for me. Which sucks, 'cos the cover's hot. x
Profile Image for Rachael.
284 reviews5 followers
November 18, 2023
This wasn’t my favorite and I’m so sad about it 😭

I was more invested in the side characters and what’s going on in the world and what other books might come out of the new characters introduced than Helen and Mathiras’ relationship.

The main thing that I didn’t like is Helen’s naivety. I absolutely hate it when a characters main personality trait is their innocence. Especially when it’s a woman and especially when she keeps getting called sweet and innocent and naive while having sex. It makes her feel childish and fetishized and it genuinely bothers me so much. Throughout the book I kept wishing that rather than Mathiras continuously saying how innocent she is he just teach her things! Literally just educate her about things! Show her and tell her what life and things are like!!! If she’s adult enough to have sex with you and to want sex then she’s old enough to know what’s appropriate to say around people and she’s old enough to learn about the world.

Anyway. I’m excited to see what’s next and hopefully Helen is less naive by that book.
Profile Image for dany.
676 reviews50 followers
March 21, 2023
Primero no sabía cómo sentirme respecto a Helen porque sólo podía pensar ay qué tonta 🤠 afortunadamente, eso me duró como 10 minutos porque de ahí Ruby sacó aspectos mil veces más interesantes de su personalidad. Por cierto, era tan cruda y sin filtro para describir su intimidad que de verdad me reía lol. Y Mathiras 😌 yo sabía que ese alíen tenía potencial, qué va, hay bastante negación al inicio pero cuando las cosas se calientan aaaaajajajaj mi hombre no decepciona, me derretía con cada sweetheart y lo bueno que él mismo menciona no es mucho de dirty talk pero ejem, tiene lo suyo, real. Siento que la relación entre Helen y Mathiras estuvo bien desarrollada, hubiera preferido quizás un poco más corta porque hay cosillas que se pudieron quitar sin cambiar la esencia de los personajes pero gracias al cariño que tengo a estos personajes, lo disfruté todo aún así.
Amé leer las interacciones con Adi, Kas, Straik y por supuesto con Jade, Alice y Ruth. Aquí hay un tipo destino más concreto para mi familia de piratas espáciales favoritas. Sterre igual se robó un poquito el show lo admito.
Todo este asunto de los clones, abre muchas posibilidades en el Rubyverse.
PD TE AMO JERROK MI VARÓN, TAMBIÉN A SOPHIE TQMMMMMM MI PAREJA FAVORITA DE RUBY DIXON 💖
Profile Image for Edit.
1,455 reviews18 followers
October 9, 2022
1.5 stars (probably my least favorite couple/book of the RD universe...)

* Hero(s) - 2/5
* Heroine(s) - 1/5
* Secondary Characters - 4/5

* Plot/Storyline - 2/5
* Romance/Steam - 1/5
* Drama/Conflict/Angst - 2/5
* Worldbuilding/Atmosphere - 4/5

* Writing Style - 2/5

This couple had no chemistry and I don't think they are fit together well at all. For some reason they are in love, but I just could not see how... 100+ chapters, and still.

Helen was based on Leeloo, but she felt very immature and annoying with her oversharing and rolling pin. Basically a 3 years old clone with a body of a woman, who has zero life experience. She immediately attaches herself to Mathiras - mind you she is genetically coded to be attracted to an authority figure... and has pleasure bumps everywhere on her body... Yeah...
and she wants him to "put a baby inside her", because everyone else is pregnant, but the end of the book she changes her mind (thankfully). She gets distracted by glowing vegetables and never ever had an orgasm before btw...) She was tolerable when her personality switched but that did not last long.

With every chapter I liked this couple less and less.
What a shame. I hope we will get to know the Qura'aki (fae-mermaids) race more in the future books.
Profile Image for Merry Berry.
79 reviews6 followers
October 14, 2022
2 stars cause it’s Ruby. Dnf @ 51%.

Helen was cool at first, but idk—her child-like logic applied to adult topics just didn’t work for me in the long run.

Another thing that bothered me was that I didn’t get what Mathiras saw in her besides her beauty.

Couldn’t connect with this one.
Profile Image for live a 1000 lives.
85 reviews3 followers
July 6, 2022
The first I didn't finish

Sad to say I didn't finish this book. I have read on and loved all the others but I got bored reading this and just didn't like Helen very much at all.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 263 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.