I feel like I'm being trad-wife'd and I'm the girl that avoids child-free/no marriage storiesEnough with the pie, girl
I can't.
I really really can't.
I feel like I'm being trad-wife'd and I'm the girl that avoids child-free/no marriage stories.
Spoilers❗ ⚠️
Hero marries and abandons her for six weeks in a dirty, cob-webby cabin in the middle of nowhere in winter (with supplies). Sunshiny doormat that she is, heroine shrugs, Snow White's the place and Cinderella's the whole town as if all the NPCs were mice and birds.
He liked me
In fact, most of the village of Houllebec did. And the only people in the village (that I knew of) who didn’t were people I had not met.
Hero comes back suddenly, forces them to sleep in the same bed (no sex). When they wake up, she makes pancakes and bacon, and they sit down to eat as if they had done it all their lives.
↠ This is when things start to get distorted for me.
She's discussing wanting to get to know him before having sex (why is she so accepting they are married for real when she's supposed to go back in a year? why tell him she's not gay and potentially leave her counterpart to be raped when she goes back? why does she even have to have her year long adventures with him? why can't she let hi grunt and growl, cut some wood and store some meat and let him be gone again?) and she proposes fifteen meals together. He says two, she says fifteen, he keeps saying two until she agrees on the condition he doesn't bring dead carcasses into the cottage (girl, you need better negotiations skills... You hold all the cards and your one request is "no bleeding deer on the table?")
But as my brain is still catching up to this weirdly domestic scene between a girl that isekai'd herself to a fantasy medieval world and the fantasy version of a viking, they go to town to buy food for dinner.
A dinner she cooks while happily humming how nice to have a man chopping her wood (...more
For dark romance readers, a tortured heroine is the norm, the everyday flavor, a common opal―pretty but not particularly valuable.
This book throws a lot at us in a small amount of time
➜ Drugged by her parents for months to keep her compliant
➜ Locked away most of her life
➜ Starved when she misbehaved
➜ Starved to make her lose weight
➜ Regularly beaten by her father
And that's just the exposition.
The book opens the day before her arranged wedding to the big mafia guy (↞ more on that later)
She's drugged out of her mind because her family has a tradition that the priest that marries the bride is the one that 'breaks the barrier' (no thrusting and no happy ending allowed). The heroine is, like any human on the planet, not big on that idea.
She begs her mother a last time before she's left practically tied to the bed and she gains a severe slap for her efforts.
Big twist.
The hero isn't too keen on having an old priest deflower his bride so he does it while making her believe she's sleeping with the priest (who, if you remember, wasn't supposed to have a happy ending) This is where we get this gem (hide spoiler)]...more
I love MFM, MMF, reverse harem with and without MM. I've been a bit dazzled by my new toy (dark romaNo
Spoilers. Rant. Warning, etc.
You know the drill.
I love MFM, MMF, reverse harem with and without MM. I've been a bit dazzled by my new toy (dark romance), so it's true that I haven't read that many this year.
But I've read them and I've enjoyed them.
That's because it's in the context of a 'couple'. They are all heroes/heroine.
This book starts with the heroine in a relationship with a 'bi' boyfriend, except he's openly cheating on her with men. She sees it as him exploring his sexuality but it's plain cheating.
When they go to a sex party so the boyfriend can be f*cked from behind for the first time as he's with the heroine, my first thought was "I'm sure the hero will snatch her up and lock her away while the boyfriend drowns in dicks or something."
As of reviewing, this book has a "dark" tag but nothing could be further from the truth.
➤ Bad beginnings make for bad bookThis book is garbage soup
As of reviewing, this book has a "dark" tag but nothing could be further from the truth.
➤ Bad beginnings make for bad books
In the era of ZERO OWD/OMD tolerance, I original thought the book was taking a calculated risk when it included it.
You see, this a taboo-ish romance between an 18 year old heroine and her godfather/parent's best friends. The age gap is significant, 23 years (18/41).
These sort of romances, even the 'dark' ones, need to thread a careful line.
➥ ① How to make the hero attracted to FMC without him being a p*do? ➥ ② How to make the hero's initial resistance/guilt feel real? ➥ ③ How to finally make him get over it and succumb?
Those are all delicate lines and this is how the author resolves them:
➥ ① The MCs go through a very traumatic experience that makes them rely on each other more than ever ➥ ② There's a 'she takes off her glasses and she's hot' moment (should've been the first ...more
I've seen this author recommended a few times as someone that writes hot taboo breeding kink. Sadly (lol) her taboo books aren't onA bit too technical
I've seen this author recommended a few times as someone that writes hot taboo breeding kink. Sadly (lol) her taboo books aren't on KU (duh) but those that are on it are still taboo-ish.
This book is a variation on a trope I like (guardian/ward) but in a more modern setting; coach/student.
I enjoy the fictional power imbalance, taboo as well as the longing.
⚠️ Just in case, I don't support this irl whatsoever. One would hope that's obvious but this is such a triggering and sensitive issue irl, that I just wanted to make that clear.
The book is on the shorter side but there was still that longing and that push of the attraction I love. I would have given this 4 ★ if it wasn't for the really technical water polo descriptions. The training, the games, the passes, and a bunch of stuff I didn't really process because my brain shut off.
I really tried to give this a chance, but I can't understand the author's choice for the heroine.
She's hardcore against 'This was not well thought out
I really tried to give this a chance, but I can't understand the author's choice for the heroine.
She's hardcore against 'machinery' and 'innovation' since 'it gives more money to those that already have and leaves artisans and craftsmen without jobs' and 'produces lower quality product'.
girl... i have news.
What am I supposed to feel here?
I'm listening to this on my phone, through audible. I'm typing my review on my computer in my nicely airconditioned room.
First it was the machines, then the robots, now AI. She's fighting for the losing side. A smart heroine would be fighting for education and funding for schooling in new crafts and skills.
As of time of DNF, she's just raging against the machine and she doesn't even have a cool instrument with her.
Maybe if I was reading this in the 19th century and hadn't spoiled myself on how the whole industrialist movement ends......more
First of all, I took a whole star just for that title. It's fine to use variations on Shakespearean plays,**spoiler alert** Brave but failed attempted
First of all, I took a whole star just for that title. It's fine to use variations on Shakespearean plays, idioms, or classical literary titles. However, despite titles not falling under plagiarism, this feels like trying to ride another's coattails.
I don't like when authors use fellow contemporary but more successful author's title variation. Anyone who reads HR knows about The Duchess Deal. It is popular enough even non-HR readers like it.
It's not even the Duchess' deal, but her husband's, so...
▶ An interesting beginning
This book started out strong.
We get a glimpse from the hero's past and immediately after begin with the story.
We're introduced to the Duke and Duchess of Stanhope (not a big fan of real title names, but ...more
This was my face every time it was the heroine's POV:
[image]
She only has words of criticism and condescension for the hero; Such an unpleasant heroine
This was my face every time it was the heroine's POV:
[image]
She only has words of criticism and condescension for the hero; he's awkward, he's clumsy, etc.
I didn't really see the 'awkward' part. He's not a smooth rake nor a broody ah... That's it.
He is clumsy.
However, where does the impoverished, ill-reputed, twenty-seven year old daughter of a mad earl even get the balls to throw that sort of criticism around?
They're barely hanging on as it is. When he offers because she's compromised and she thinks, "Welp, my already dubious reputation will be in tatters when I refuse him but at least I'll be able to work as a governess in a reputable household and finally truly help my family" (not an exact quote, but that's the gist of it) I just knew this book wasn't for me.
You can help your family without destroying your reputation by marrying the nice, rich earl that proposed despite all your faults, you sh*thead.
I just can't. Even people who liked and finished the book commented on how her reasons for refusing him made no sense.
Then her pity wafted toward me like the perfumed air in Hyde Park in the evening during promenades.
Why do characters need to sound like idiots when a person unfamiliar with HR writes HR? It's not about flowery language, just a style of speech no longer used.
My traditionally bright eyes were now hollow and glassy, devoid of all luminosity. My usual slightly devious smirk, with its gentle uptick at the corners of my mouth, nonexistent, replaced by the most emotionless and sullen expression.
This could've sounded great... in the third person. In the first person she reminds me of a certain middle sister...
[image]
had been the particulars spoon-fed to the gentry in London to keep my secret safe.
desperately wanting a moment to myself before I was expected to converse with other members of the gentry.
You mean the Ton there... at least aristocracy? Or peers? He's a viscount and she's the daughter of Lord Hayward (her name being Amelia Hayward, so at least a baron), definitely higher than gentry.
But before you get your pitchforks, that wasn't even what made me quit. It was this:
It was set to be a moonless night, leaving me only the tiniest pinpricks of stars to guide my way to the location that Philip was known to be seen often at this time.
And where is that? India???? Are the stars guiding her like giving her directions or are the stars guiding her by 'illuminating' the path? Either way, the math isn't mathing.
Within a the mafia genre, this book's rating for me is between 3 ★ and 4 ★.
ஐ Adrift heroine
Sasha is Surprisingly cute and surprisingly realistic?
Within a the mafia genre, this book's rating for me is between 3 ★ and 4 ★.
ஐ Adrift heroine
Sasha is a bit of a doormat in the sense that life is kinda just happening to her. But it's not written in a overly dramatic, woe-is-me way. It's just the reality of many young women from impoverished backgrounds.
↠ The good
・She's learned to develop her own version of a spine and it doesn't involve being fearless or unbreakable, but just loyal to the end.
・Her love for her mother and rift with her sister is a good sort of realistic. Not everything can ne rosy.
・Her 'sudden' determination to get the hero to open up to her wasn't sudden at all but building over the years.
↠ The bad
・I didn't read the first book, but I imagine it would focus on its own protagonists. In this book, the heroine has gone through two abusive relationships, one originally consensual and one not consensual at all. Despite the book going into gritty, dark, gory details of the hero's trauma, the heroine's trauma is... pixilated? It's not fade to black but it's treated more superficially.
I didn't like that since it's only useful for a bit of the plot and the rest of the time it all focused on the hero's trauma. It's doesn't matter his is more horrific. Trauma is not something that gets to be compared. Both should've been treated equally.
・Her future is pretty much left up in the air? She draws well and maybe they could've done something with that, even if she's just the mafia's designated tattoo designer. As it is, it kinda defaulted to homemaker (which, if you read my many, many breeding kink books, you'll know I have no problem with). I wished it had been more obvious that that was what she wanted, though.
ஐ Tortured hero
I really like the hero. He fell in love at first sight with the heroine three years prior and it has taken him that long to build the courage and the social skills to try to win her over.
↠ The good
・With the background he's given, his social and communication skills match really well and the fact that he's a virgin despite his good looks is completely believable.
・His slow opening up to the heroine, despite his love for her, was heartwarming to watch.
First, an important part of the plot is the fact that the heroine's family is known as 'scandalous'.
I'm not certain that adjective is the correct one. The heroine's older sister was born with a spine issue, which made the family 'scandalous' and therefore unacceptable.
I'm not saying any sort of physical impediment or mental disorder wasn't shunned in... well, whatever time this takes place in (there are trains). But I think as long as the family kept said family member apart from society, if you have enough money and blue blood, the rest of the family could just keep being received? Especially in the Victorian era where major social changes are taking place (nurses, women secretaries, more women owning their businesses, etc.)
Besides the trains, this book read a lot like an early Regency. It was very confusing. Nothing about this felt Victorian.
Anywho, I digress.
The plot. Yes. Well, the problem with the plot is that there are way too many things going on:
↠ "Rival" families; hero's family disapprove of the heroine's family. Yet, the hero still spent all his childhood with the heroine?
↠ Hero's father has Alzheimer's; it's the reason the hero comes back from his Grand Tour (see? that's such a Regency thing, not a Victorian one) but it kinda comes to nothing? Since the hero's the spare and the heir is the one that ends up taking care of things.
↠ Hero figuring out his life
↠ Heroine's sister's health issues; they are the reason the heroine doesn't want to get married.
↠ Heroine's mother having a personality transplant
↠ Oh and The heroine is engaged for over 80% of the book!! (Technically, the engagement is never broken, but him conspiring to kidnap her kinda ended it in my mind.)
This book has the weirdest OM drama ever. The heroine sort of likes her fiancé but isn't certain. He treats her pretty nicely for a man that doesn't know her much, they kiss, she doesn't hate it and so is neutral about him.
It's only when the fiancé doesn't defend her sister to his relatives that she loses her desire to be with him (though she was having doubts by then).
She wants to break the engagement but he refuses. Instead of asking her father (whose insanely rich, btw) she decides to behave scandalously so he breaks it up with her.
How does that make any sense? Isn't her family already scandalous? Didn't the fiancé propose despite that?
The fiancé then also gets a weird personality transplant where instead of looking at the heroine as someone he likes, he completely superimposes the love of his life (who died) with the heroine. Going as far as saying things like "she likes three sugars", "she doesn't want to go to America" as if the heroine was just a double of his deceased intended.
Meanwhile, the heroine is doing all her scandalous things yet is still received into society. Why? They weren't when their only sin was having a disabled daughter. Now, the second daughter is racing on rotten row in trousers and astride and going to a gaming hells with a rakish duke (hero's friend). She. is. still. received.
I really lost interest then. Nothing was making sense.
The final straw, though, was the heroine confessing sleeping with the hero to her fiancé and him still not throwing her over!
Add to all of this a kidnapping plot...
I can't with this book.
The romance
How many time does the duke friend have to call the hero a coward for him to react?!
The hero's pinned for the heroine for 12 years. And he still does almost nothing. Too passive for my taste.
The heroine's feelings for the hero were also the most wishy-washy ever. To the end, I really didn't buy her falling for the hero. (hide spoiler)]
Final thoughts
I reiterate; I really can't understand the high ratings. The weak hero, the tepid feelings from the heroine, the most ludicrous kidnapping plot, the unoriginal 'do scandalous things to get jilted' plot, the atmosphere that doesn't match the supposed era.
If it wasn't because I didn't have the energy to choose a different audiobook, I would've dropped this.
P.S.: I might be extra churlish because a previous book has left me empty inside and nothing is keeping my attention...more
Finally I found the dark erotica I needed after The Silver Devil.
The hero is on the spectrum and once he's obUnhinged and obsessed but in a sweet way?
Finally I found the dark erotica I needed after The Silver Devil.
The hero is on the spectrum and once he's obsessed with the heroine, he makes a detailed plan to get her. But in the sweetest, adorable-est way.
CW:
↠ Breeding kink ↠ Somno ↠ Stalker
The writing is stilted, and the lack of commas was criminal. But for a short erotica? It's readable. Even with the simple writing, something about the essence of the characters was conveyed.
That first chapter, when the heroine is having her manic episode, I was hoNot connecting with the characters
I made till 28% but I just can't anymore.
That first chapter, when the heroine is having her manic episode, I was hooked. I was feeling everything with her; the confusion, the elation, the frustration.
I was so excited to see where the story would go.
The plot
I went in blind, so beside knowing this is a Phantom of the Opera retelling, I didn't know anything else.
I was surprised by the major changes:
↠ The Phantom has a twin brother
↠ There are rival mafia families (why, though?)
↠ Adorable Raoul is made into a villain (I always cheered for the phantom, don't get me wrong, but I never hated Raoul...)
↠ Hero is a vigilante on the side
↠ The heroine's father murder being a side mystery that will probably tie to main plot at the end
I'm not saying I'm hating these changes, but I am saying that I didn't connect with them.
The romance
This was my biggest ick.
I hope I express myself well because if I don't this is going to sound so terrible.
Like I said at the beginning, the heroine starts the book with a manic episode. She's bipolar and the next chapter has a time skip of a year, where she's been taking care of herself.
I have no problem with the heroine having a bipolar disorder.
My problem was the way the hero talks about it. He says he loves her innocence but it was her darkness that attracted him to her. The more we're in his head the more he made it feel as if it was because she was bipolar that he became obsessed with her.
I find that a bit icky. Loving a person means loving them as a whole, "flaws" and all. But, I don't know... loving them because of a mental disorder just doesn't seem right?? Like falling for someone because they have an amputated leg or something.
Is it me? Is this a good thing? I don't know anymore!
But I was kind of ready to push through that, until her not-date-but-date with villainous Raoul (not the character's name btw, but just so you know who he's supposed to be) kinda soured the last bit of interest I had in the story.
↠ The fake Raoul SA'd her by touching her when she was just 12 and he 16. That's too much baggage for me to handle.
↠ He's touching her and she's recoiling. He's gaslighting her but she hasn't the energy to defend herself. I get it, mental illness is such a battery drainer, but reading about spineless heroines is too.
Overall, she was giving off major 'damsel in distress' vibes (not really a plus).
Combine that with the hero seeing this via hacked cameras and not going to her because "his disfigurement is proof his family side of the mafia is weak"??? (what?) and we get:
a stalker hero not obsessed enough and a weak heroine. ...more
Sorry, that person's shelf is private.
Izzah ꒰Ｒｏｍａｎｃｅ愛好家 ಇ Duchess of Cabria꒱
>
Books:
first-time-author
(176)
Loading...
