A review by wetdryvac
Hunting Season by Shelly Laurenston
5.0
I bloody love this author. Their characterization is amazing, they're irreverent in just the right places and... damn if I didn't have to eject half way through this book. This is your friendly contract/consent ethicist saying, "If it's not an enthusiastic yes, for the love of hell, NO."
And let's be clear: This is well done here. The nice guy is portrayed as nice, has *seriously* nice characteristics, and he's in beautiful genre form. And the line crossed isn't no-and-then-sex. It's control.
Which, well, there's a tradition of ravishment in romance novels which I'd rather like taken out behind the paint shed and executed. (and yes, it's totally valid to like that in a book, even if I can't) But. This isn't that. It's just control. As though somehow, "Just control," OK. And... for a lot - a LOT - of readers? It's just fine.
I'm not one of 'em.
Keep in mind that I got through Susan R. Matthew's An Exchange of Hostages and the initial Black Jewels trilogy just fine. The key is that those scenarios, while appalling and awful, are not presented as normalized. And this... as with a lot of other romance, is. And it's done better than most, which frankly is what had me running for the hills.
Yeah, five stars: It was amazing before I had to eject, and the reason I had to eject all of a sudden, full visceral NOPE, is that it was so damn well done.
And let's be clear: This is well done here. The nice guy is portrayed as nice, has *seriously* nice characteristics, and he's in beautiful genre form. And the line crossed isn't no-and-then-sex. It's control.
Which, well, there's a tradition of ravishment in romance novels which I'd rather like taken out behind the paint shed and executed. (and yes, it's totally valid to like that in a book, even if I can't) But. This isn't that. It's just control. As though somehow, "Just control," OK. And... for a lot - a LOT - of readers? It's just fine.
I'm not one of 'em.
Keep in mind that I got through Susan R. Matthew's An Exchange of Hostages and the initial Black Jewels trilogy just fine. The key is that those scenarios, while appalling and awful, are not presented as normalized. And this... as with a lot of other romance, is. And it's done better than most, which frankly is what had me running for the hills.
Yeah, five stars: It was amazing before I had to eject, and the reason I had to eject all of a sudden, full visceral NOPE, is that it was so damn well done.