Trope / Age of Protagonists
New World, Book #2
Heat Factor: Ana tells Kit she’s a good girl so you *know* there’s some heat here.
Character Chemistry: The Goddess has decreed it!
Plot: Kit escaped from a lab; Ana has hunted her down and is going to return her. Time for a road trip (to pound town)!
Overall: I liked that this book surprised me.
Heat Factor: It slipped in. Consent optional. Do you need consent if you’re married?
Character Chemistry: He is large, grumpy and swarthy, and she is fair, smol and pure. How can they not fall in love?
Plot: One damn thing after the next, caused by miscommunication and stupidity.
Overall: They’re mad at each other, but they don’t know why they’re mad at each other, and they won’t stop doing dumb things to each other.
Heat Factor: It’s the sexiest one we’ve read so far in the Old School read-a-thon
Character Chemistry: It’s The Taming of the Shrew, but who’s taming who?
Plot: Jamie’s like, “You told me to handle it! So I handled it.”
Overall: This book is absolutely delightful.
Content Note: These books contain rape, ablism, and racism and we discuss this content in our review. Also, sorry, Ranulf of The Black Lyon is not actually a Hottie McScottie, but he’s got highlander energy.
Continue reading “Back to Old School: Hottie McScottie Week”
Birmingham, Book #1
Heat Factor: “His warmth and passion” is “led on to his nest.”
Character Chemistry: Is it abuse or is it love? Hard to tell.
Plot: Brandon rapes Heather. They are forced to get married. And then Brandon takes Heather to South Carolina, where shenanigans occur and also they somehow decide they’re in love.
Overall: It’s all totally yikes or totally infuriating and sometimes both!
Please note: This book includes rape, abuse, chattel slavery, and ableism (among other things), which we discuss in this review.
Continue reading “Back to Old School: The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss (1972)”The Family, Book #1 & 5
Review of The Family, Book #2 & Book #3
Heat Factor: There is plenty of time for sex no matter what else is happening
Character Chemistry: A lot of this couple’s chemistry occurs in Beautiful & Dirty, but they’re so happy to be reunited in The Don
Plot: Shae meets Salvatore on a day that she’s about done with her selfish boyfriend, and when her day in Naples ends with a pregnancy, she’s a little lost…until her cousin’s disappearing act takes her right back to Italy and Salvatore’s restaurant
Overall: You kind of have to read the whole series, but if half sex, half mayhem sounds fun to you, I definitely recommend it.
Continue reading “Review: Beautiful & Dirty and The Don by Katrina Jackson (2020-2022)”Follow the Money, Book #1
Heat Factor: Somehow the second time is more explicit and elaborate than the first time? (What?) But not by much – it’s very much a “just the highlights” situation
Character Chemistry: Did not work for me
Plot: Ben discovers a quarter million accounting error at his company, tells his boss, and then his boss gets murdered
Overall: The characterizations were so muddy I eventually got a headache
The Smut Report 