Reviews From This Past Week
Bred: A Charity Anthology
Release Date: October 31, 2022
Content Notes
Breeding
Morally Grey MCs
Age Gap
Size Difference
Dubious Consent
Primal play
Varying levels of spice but overall explicit
Bred is a Whitman’s chocolate sampler of breeding kinks in smut. There’s a little something for everyone, including my fellow monster lovers.
This anthology has a wider range of spicy romances than my usual anthology picks. Normally, I go for anthologies dedicated to monster romance in every story. So I admit I kept to specific stories in this anthology for the sake of reviewing.
Mastered by the Orc by L.V. Lane
Seducing the Fae King by Kayla St. James
Her Demon Keeper by TL Reece and Michele Ryan
The Devil’s Bargain by M. J. Marstens
These all ticked off some form of the breeding kink readers would be looking for, which is obviously fun. The monster choices lean more humanoid than not. Orcs, demons, and pretty and elven-like Fae are fairly safe monster choices but enjoyable nevertheless. This is a series I would recommend to my fellow smut lovers in general.
I Married a Dragon by Regine Abel
Release Date: August 8, 2022
Content Notes
Knotting
Fated Mates
Enhanced alien peen
Breeding
Marriage of Convenience
Primal Play
Virgin MMC/Experienced FMC
Law Enforcement FMC
Regine Abel pushes her character and world-building skills with I Married a Dragon in ways that will either make sense or turn off some readers. Personally? I’m all in. Trans-dimensional vortexes and Shadow Lords/Ejayas dynamics may feel like much for some readers. I still recommend trying it out.
This may be Abel’s most ambitious world-building book in the series. It takes some acclimation which may be tricky for some readers to follow. I know I had to take some time to ask myself “Wait, what?” I do appreciate that the author tries to spell out exactly how dimension traveling works. I feel this aspect will make sci-fi fans feel at home so the complexity to me is more of a feature than a bug.
Readers can still be assured Abel has made this book as cozy as the others. I recall seeing a review that said Abel could make a relationship between a vacuum and a human cozy. I don’t know about a vacuum but I concur with the sentiment regardless.
There are unique relationship challenges though in this book that might turn off some readers. To be honest, the challenges didn’t bother me. I just suffer from reader empathy. Past Prime Mating Agency books to me have more grace given to the FMC as she adapts to a new, alien world. Of course, some of those concessions were to address physical limitations the FMC had in a world better designed for non-human people. In this world, the MMC has more physical needs to overcome, which the FMC has to accommodate. To try and balance this out, Abel makes the MMC the sweetest, most grateful puppy dog-like character I think she could have made him.
As a reader of the Prime Mating Agency, the explorations Abel undertook made sense to me while she keeps to why this series is popular. Abel is damn good at mixing the unusual with the cozy. If you need a comfort read that will make you feel like you’re not on Earth anymore, Abel’s got your back.
Currently Reading
Release Date: October 20, 2022
To Be Read
Housekeeping
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