2 out of 5 stars
Kindle Edition. 201 pages. Published October 31st 2016 by Dreamspinner Press (first published March 19th 2012)
Blurb:
When Killian Barth, history professor, meets Blaine Genneau, quantum physicist, they ignite their own big bang. But sadly, Killian walks away. He doesn’t do physics professors. In fact, he doesn’t do humans, because Killian is the most powerful male witch in 10 generations and, though gay, he’s expected to save his declining race by reproducing.
He can’t even have sex with Blaine, because he’s been taught that sex with humans depletes his power. But if that’s true, why can young human, Jimmy Janx, dissolve spoons with a thought? Somebody’s a lying witch.
With his powerful cat familiar, Aloysius, on his shoulder, Killian brings the lightning against deceit and greed to save Blaine from danger and prove love is the greatest power of them all.
Likes:
- Aloysius.
- The non-romantic plot.
Dislikes:
- Insta-lust.
- Can’t keep my attention.
- Killian ended up sounding whiney.
- Nonconsensual BDSM.
- Random POV changes.
- Not much magic.
- No world building.
- Killian doesn’t feel like a master witch.
- No real romance.
- The characters feel 2 dimensional.
This was a reread for me. I remember liking the book, which was why I was so surprised when I couldn’t get into the story. After finishing the book, I realized that I dislike almost everything in it. The only exceptions are the cat, Aloysius, and the non-romantic plot involving the witch community.
The first thing that really turned me off was the insta-lust. This might have been the most extreme example of it that I’ve ever encountered. Added into the mix is Killian’s lack of experience with love and long romantic relationships. It makes him act like a teenager, including the “No reason for him to exist” moping when his on again/off again relationship with Blaine is off again.
Their relationship was fueled by lust and didn’t go much farther. There was no building of their relationship, none of that feel-good falling in love. They spent very little time together that wasn’t having sex or trying desperately not to have sex. Sure, they confessed their love, but I didn’t see it. It felt more like they decided they were in love because that’s what the plot needed.
Killian’s attraction to Blaine was based a lot on the fact that Blaine liked him without knowing that Killian was the Witch Master. Basically, Blaine was the first person to be nice to him without an ulterior motive. That’s not the building blocks of love. It just highlighted how sheltered Killian was.
Killian doesn’t act like a Witch Master, or much of a witch at all. The magic in this book is basically just a plot device, and a boring one at that. There’s no world building, no explanation of why witches exist, and no exploration of the witching community at large.
I have liked a lot of Tara Lain’s books in the past, but there is a trend in some of her books that I just hate – sexual assault that goes unpunished. Off the top of my head, I can think of two other examples besides this book that include sexual assault where the character doesn’t report the matter. Killian basically does the same thing, so instead of putting that down to his character, I put that on Lain. Killian had the power and position to punish his attacker, who tuned a consenting sexual encounter into a nonconsensual one involving BDSM. It’s the lack of punishment that bothers me so much, and the fact that it feels like a pattern in Lain’s writing.
My final complaint is how two-dimensional the characters are. Power hungry women, faux Russian mobsters, creeps, and college students. Looking back on the book, it doesn’t feel like any of the characters had depth. The worst was Jimmy, not because he was 2D but because he didn’t sound like a college student majoring in physics. Not when he says things like “Jeez” and “I can’t believe you still loved me when you thought I might be the death of everything you hold dear.”
I wanted to like this book. I did before. But I need the romance to be more important than the lust. Because I knew what would happen with the plot, the curiosity that fueled my interest was gone. I’m going to assume that the question of ‘how will this relationship work’ was what made me like the book the first time. I hope the next book in the series will be better, but my excitement for it has dulled significantly.
Be sure to check out the reviews for Brush with Catastrophe (The Aloysius Tales #2), Cataclysmic Shift (The Aloysius Tales #3), and the series review.
Love is Love Reviews 