3.25 out of 5 stars
DNF 58%
E-book. Kindle Unlimited. 2nd edition. 278 pages. Published August 26th 2019 (first published September 26th 2016)
Blurb:
Can two very different men find the love they need to survive?
Remi Ginn’s an easygoing werecat with a love of snarky T-shirts. He would be perfectly happy with a human mate. Is that what the goddess Bast gives him? Of course not. Instead she gifts him with Marshell, a Vetala, a snakelike nonshifter who drinks blood to survive. A man who’s just as toppy as Remi—and even more powerful than the West Falls Clowder’s Alpha and heir apparent.
While Remi is deciding whether he can handle the fates’ choice, hunters attack Marshell. Afterward, in an explosion of passion, Remi and Marshell mate and Remi declares Marshell his. Now they have to figure out how to make their relationship work as they dance around each other.
The clowder is in turmoil, and Remi’s acceptance of Marshell rocks the very foundation of the insular group. The consequences will be far-reaching. And if that isn’t problem enough, the situation with the hunters is far from resolved… as proved by the appearance of an Alpha werewolf.
Likes:
- Marshell and Remi, separately and together.
- Action and drama right from the start.
- Strong non-romantic plot at the beginning.
- Hot smut.
- The reason Marshell wasn’t immediately welcome in the clowder was different.
- Shakeup in the clowder.
Dislikes:
- It feels like the same book as the last two, but with different characters.
- Non-romantic plot quickly forgotten.
- Total recap of what happened to Heller’s sister.
- Big chunks of dialogue with not much else going on.
- No strong sense of voice.
- Fight over who tops makes penetrative sex sound like the gold standard.
DNF 58%
Honestly, I liked this book better than the first two. What made me decide to stop reading was that I realized my desire to finish the book had nothing to do with the book itself. I was looking forward to reading something else. Fantasizing about it, really. The way a person on a diet can’t stop thinking about cake. And since there’s no reason for me to push myself to finish a book that’s lost my attention, I stopped.
By the time I quit, Remi and Marshell had mated and were a stable couple, and Marshell had joined the clowder. Which basically meant that the romance was a sealed deal. That left about 40% of the book for non-romantic plot things, and this series has not been good with that. There is a reason why most romance books don’t have the characters engage in a hot and heavy makeout session before the first page even starts.
Ultimately, I think the way this series is written doesn’t work for me. Which bums me out, because the books have so many of the elements I’m usually drawn to. It’s the way the stories are presented, not necessarily the stories themselves, that leaves me wanting more.
I had a realization when reading this book that there’s not a strong sense of voice to any of the characters. Marshell and Remi are wildly different men, and both of them get first person point of view sections. But that first person point of view doesn’t add depth to the characters. It’s a very surface level kind of first person, not revealing any of their quirks or personality. It’s been true with the entire series, and explains why I never got deeply invested.
Despite that, I did like Remi and Marshell. I’ve liked them both for a while, and was looking forward to their romance. They’re both tops, and that dynamic was fun to watch as they figured out their relationship. The smut was as hot as the other books, but I wish that penetrative sex wasn’t held up as the gold standard. They didn’t even talk about other ways of having sex.
This book did have some tension and drama in the beginning with the appearance of hunters targeting Marshell. It was a good start to the non-romantic plot. Unfortunately, it was all but forgotten about as Marshell and Remi started their romance. After Marshell healed, he and Remi basically acted like the attack didn’t happen. They even went out dancing like it was no big thing, when the hunters were still out there.
I did like that the reason the clowder hesitated to accept Marshell was different from the previous books. They had no problem accepting his twin sister, but Marshell gave them pause. Remi didn’t hesitate to stand up for his mate, which was no surprise.
I feel like, in the end, these past three books have been the same base story with different characters. Like the same style shoes but in a different color. There have been an overwhelming number of similarities, and that’s lead to a lot of rehashing of the same information in every book. Kirk, Lawson, and Marshell all went through the clowder joining ceremony, and it was exactly the same thing all three times. It became repetitive and tedious. And the complete retelling of what happened with Heller’s sister was totally unnecessary, both for the reader who already knows the story, and for the plot, which slows down because of it.
Love is Love Reviews 