I love a writer who you can tell is also a reader—a *real* one that gets attached to the animals in the story!
Kill all the humans you want, but if you kill an animal in the story, I’m done.
Any other authors out there ruin this one particular suspense element for the mental health of readers??
I was so looking forward to writing a review of {His to Claim by Kat Steele}. I was liking the characters, the vibe was right, and the unrealistic elements (a mob boss that wasn’t a scumbag with a side of violence) could be overlooked.
Then I hit Chapter 14. 😔
The previous pages introduced us to a competent, put together FMC who was a trauma surgeon and a MMC that was more than a caricature of a man involved with organized crime. She had a healthy relationship with her family and he is mourning his recently deceased father while maintaining a gentle relationship with his sister. None of the supporting characters were the kind of *unique* that would make anyone walk in the opposite direction is you met someone like that in real life. The spice was nice—not the hottest I’ve read but definitely holding its own.
Call me a prude, call me vanilla, call me a kink-shamer, but I just can’t get behind (ha, the pun stays) either surprise anal with zero prep or going from fucking an ass to fucking a pussy (with a bonus of MMC licking his and her cum from her pussy afterwards).
Anal is cool in spicy books. I’ve had to overlook some less-than-realistic depictions in the past, but I don’t think I’ve ever read one where FMC isn’t even warned before penetration, let alone lubed up. She *barely* gets any clit action before exploding in a huge climax, obvs. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen that way in reality (I don’t know your life) but along with the dry, surprise ass-fucking, I just feel like this is so unrealistic and borderline dangerous.
I do not support going from penis in ass to same exact penis in pussy, and I don’t mind if I’m quoted on that. I once had an allergic reaction from some laundry detergent on my virginia and thought I was going to claw my own eyes out because of the itching. Taking a contaminated dick straight from brown town into a lady garden is just asking for that garden to have an infestation of something nasty followed by the need for professional assistance and fumigation.
Unfortunately, this did the book in for me and I DNF’d at 60%, which I’m not at all happy about. I don’t know if the original manuscript got edited down to this point or if the author is uninformed about necessary hygiene. This is only the second time in my romance reading life to come across such an ick and I’m devastated it came from a book I was enjoying so thoroughly.