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A review by see_sadie_read
The Faceless Woman by Emma Hamm
5.0
4.5, round up
I was honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I love that almost every time I thought it was going to fall into some PNR trope it subverted it. Here's an example (I'm paraphrasing), during the only (mild) sex scene Bran trotted out the common "say 'no' now, I won't stop after this." I hate when heroes do this and you hear it all the time in PNR, like the hero he isn't saying "I'll just go ahead and rape you if you try and stop me past this point" and the reader is supposed to feel it's something else, romantic even. I groaned when he said it and then cheered when her response was, "I don't want you to stop, but if you think I couldn't stop you if I wanted to, you don't know me well."
That's Aisling in a nutshell, never afraid to call someone out, never making herself smaller, never dulling her shine for someone else, but also never falling into harridan or shrew. I so much appreciated that both she and Bran were as honest with each other as they could be, never faulted the other for what was out of their control, and Hamm never took the easy 'misunderstanding' or 'angry over secrets' plotting path.
I look forward to reading more of this series, maybe going back and starting at the beginning. And if I can get the audio, even better, because Siobhan Waring did a marvelous job.
I was honestly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I love that almost every time I thought it was going to fall into some PNR trope it subverted it. Here's an example (I'm paraphrasing), during the only (mild) sex scene Bran trotted out the common "say 'no' now, I won't stop after this." I hate when heroes do this and you hear it all the time in PNR, like the hero he isn't saying "I'll just go ahead and rape you if you try and stop me past this point" and the reader is supposed to feel it's something else, romantic even. I groaned when he said it and then cheered when her response was, "I don't want you to stop, but if you think I couldn't stop you if I wanted to, you don't know me well."
That's Aisling in a nutshell, never afraid to call someone out, never making herself smaller, never dulling her shine for someone else, but also never falling into harridan or shrew. I so much appreciated that both she and Bran were as honest with each other as they could be, never faulted the other for what was out of their control, and Hamm never took the easy 'misunderstanding' or 'angry over secrets' plotting path.
I look forward to reading more of this series, maybe going back and starting at the beginning. And if I can get the audio, even better, because Siobhan Waring did a marvelous job.