Genre: Science Fiction Romance
Disclaimer: Reading is all about discovery, but this Book Review does not shy away from spoiling specific scenes as this is more of a look inside the good and bad of a book.
The Analysis:
I found this book from a facebook group recommendation. There were many books in the selection, but I followed up with this one because of the cover. So let’s get into it.
Here’s the Blurb:
What he finds there changes his world.
Small, delicate, and pale skinned, Ivy Foster is nothing like the females Ketahn has known. She’s not of his kind at all. Yet the moment he sees her, he knows the truth in his soul—she is his heartsthread.
And now that he has her, he won’t let anything take her away. Not the jungle, not the gods, not the queen and her warriors.
Whether Ivy agrees or not, their webs are entangled. No one will ever sever those threads.
For someone not a fan of illustrations, the picture is why I picked it up. This is my first deep diver really into the sci-fic romance genre. So when I saw the pic, I was honestly curious about how the birds and the bees was supposed to work. Answer: Imagination is a heck of a thing. (lol)
Now The Story:
Book Info:
Pages: 330
Author: Tiffany Roberts
Available: Amazon
I'm sorry y'all, I skipped to like Chapter 4 or 5. I was looking for the moment where the alien actually meets the girl and I was not waiting for the backstory.
In the beginning, the relationship between the girl and the boy was very much, Me Jane, You Tarzan. Because the book is in both pov, it's easy to get frustrated with the heroine's lack of understanding of the alien's true motives. Of course, her reactions are also realistic, but I digress.
They teach each other their language and the story gets easier to read and more exciting as it goes along. They come to rely on each other. Large parts of the book is the alien teaching her about his homeland and how to survive. The alien loves the girl for the peace and tranquility she offers. While the girl appreciates his strength and care. To a certain extent, neither of them have ever truly been loved or cared for by people in their own species. Their is also significant backstory into who the heroine was before she crashed on the planet. The type of person that would eventually fall in love with an alien and have sex.
No, Georgie from Ice Planet Barbarians, here. Did the alien give her the best sex of her life? Yes. Was she ready to be his queen and sire his children because of it? No. Okay, her protests lasted less than fifteen minutes. They were still significant enough for me to rank above Georgie, who I just do not care for at all. Anyway, in this story, our heroine had genuine questions about what mating meant? They weren't necessarily answered in this book. However, I think over time his actions towards her will prove the truth. His alien society is capable of love and seems to be on the same level as I would say humans during the Egyptian era.
This leads to the conflict of the book. The queen of their society is in want of a husband. There also appears to be some sort of contest/ritual to this part. However, the queen already chose the one she wants to win. She spends the entire book telling him to get his head in the game or he will lose it. Several times, she practically abusing him for the priviledge of letting him father her babies. These scenes were so cringe for me. I felt for my boy here.
She also has a guard that is head over heels in love with the Queen and crazy jealous. This man wants to kill the hero just so he can finally get his shot. Got to feel bad for the guy. Lucky for him, our hero is not interested. Almost from the beginning, he wants one thing and one thing only, his human. He wants backrubs from her small hands, lol. I kept imagining him as a puppy that just loved to be rubbed.
His innocent exploration of her, in the beginning, in an effort to understand her body and what she was leads to the hotest steamy scene. Backed up by the sweetest scene when he returns the favor and allows her to fill him up the same.
But unlike some of the women in Ice Planet, sex with him isn't some foregone conclusion. The heroine is confused about, what she's feeling? Why she's feeling it? And the mechanics of it all? However, she starts ovulating. And she's giving off a smell that I liken to phermonoes. Its growing stronger the closer she's getting to the day. He smells it, but she doesn't. Truly, I didn't figure out what was going on to maybe a chapter before, she announced that she was cramping because of ovulation. Anyway, Alien just had, had enough. He wanted to mate.
And I wanted to know how it was gone work, lol. The alien after all has a spider-like lower half. Anyway, it works, we just gone keep it there. It's another hot scene and it delivers.
What didn't I like plot-wise? The alien was quite cold in his reasons not to awaken the other men and women that had survived the ship's crash that were still in stasis. They were factually sound reasons. However, life has taught us plenty of times that you can't always make the factually sound decision. I agree with the heroine that whether they survived or not it was best to give them a chance than none at all. He kept saying no, no, no. At first, I thought it was born out of fear and jealousy. Four of those pods were men. However, he still said no, even after they mated. I just don't agree and find it kind of cruel. Although, it doesn't completely turn me off from rooting for him. Mostly because it doesn't come from a place of maliciousness.
Anything weird? lt's just an alien fantasy and by no means am I suggesting cancellation is in order for the authors. But there was a bit of fetishization in the use of the author's words of: oh he is exotic because my skin is white and his is black. Hard no. More appropriate to say because his skin feels like leather or because he's a literal spider that makes him exotic rather than focusing on skin tone. Also, there were some controversial king kong moments that made me think twice. At this point, most people in black culture will get the reference. The blond, pale skin woman was portrayed as the most beautiful woman in the world against all else to Kong instead of the implied, uglier black women villagers in the original movie. And there were moments in this book, where it seemed like the alien was obsessed with her because she was white. After all, it was the only reason that he accidentally helped her. Especially at the end, when he so coldly said, he wasn't interested in helping any of the other people. One that's indicated to be a minority, possibly Indian. I don't think these things were the intent. And I'm not taking off points because of it. However, I did take note.
So, what am I taking off points for? Skipping. I kept doing it. It was hard to read so much backstory, sorry. However, I did enjoy this and read it all in one day. I would recommend.
Story At A Glance:
Recommendation: 4 out of 5
Read Series Continuation: Yes
The Ratings:
Book Cover Appeal:
🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓
Story & Narration:
🍓🍓🍓🍓
Romance:
🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓
Character/(s) Personality:
🍓🍓🍓🍓
