I’m intrigued by the expansive world-building in the universe of this paranormal romance series, obviously enough to read the second book in the series. And I just bought the third one. But I have such conflicted feelings about the relationships in the romance aspect of the stories.
The whole “vampire bride,” “werewolf mate,” etc. facet is incredibly heteronormative, and the male leads of both books in the series have been traditional Alpha males who come THIS CLOSE to making things kind of rapey (and I’d argue for some pretty questionable consent issues in this book in particular). How these books hold up in the evolving romance genre will be interesting.
Luckily, this story features an amazing heroine. Emma is a fascinating, unique (literally) character who has been coddled her entire life and finally has to come out of her shell. Her character arc makes this book well worth reading, especially for the exciting ending that is well worth some of the more sketchy bits in the beginning.
In short: This series is not for everybody. But so far, it’s for me.
Rating: 4 (out of 5) stars. Cross-posted to Amazon and Goodreads.