Thursday, August 27, 2020

A Hunger Like No Other by Kersley Cole - Book Review

 

A Hunger Like No Other by Kersley Cole
Publication date: March 28, 2006
My rating: 2 stars


Spoilers are marked in purple

Edit: The hero really is VERY problematic. Very, very much so. I'm aware that this type of... "hero" seems to have been pretty popular back when this book came out but it doesn't mean I can just shrug it off. This book's "romance" is abusive and the two stars are for the addictiveness and the heroine alone.


I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this book.

On one hand, it has insta-lust in it and insta-lust makes me a) bored out of my mind and b) roll my eyes repeatedly. Insta-lust is why so many popular romance books were ruined for me.

Yet on the other hand… despite the insta-lust the heroine actually DIDN’T entirely give into the hero’s demands and sexual intentions immediately, and heck she's actually the only reasonable person in their relationship by literally being all “dude, I’ve only known you for a week, can you CALM DOWN?!” I applaud, though eh I did stop my applauding short since she did actually eventually give in to his crazy demands without him actually changing his ways or groveling enough at all, but hey she went FURTHER than 90% of the usual heroines so she gets my appreciation.

In general, I really liked Emmaline and found her to be a great heroine!

If anything, it was the hero who ruined it for me. And because I liked Emma I actually wanted her to end up with someone else.
Oh, I’M GLAD she stood up for him and reminded him how abusive and unreasonable he was being, but it did not atone for his abusing ways at all to me. He was way too forceful and sexually demanding on her even when he did try to tone it down and be “gentle” - yeah, that didn’t work except for maybe at the very end.

I honestly felt like the only reason Emma even “gave him a chance” was because the mating magic messed with her head and kicked all her well sounded reasons on why she should do things her way and not his way out of her head.
Poor Emma, that mating magic gave her Stockholm syndrome.

Well this book did come out in 2006 and back then I think abusive lunatics in romance were all the rage (?) I say think because I was 8 back then so I wouldn’t know, but it’s something I observed from reading the “older” romance books from back in the early 2000 - I didn’t finish a lot of them for that reason, I couldn’t stand the abuse from the so called hero!

At the very least here the heroine actually acknowledges it and stands up to herself much more than you usually see in those situations but it was still the reason why I didn’t love this book - the hero ruined it for me, simply put.

I loved the heroine, the plot/writing was fast paced and engaging, world building was great, so basically I blame the hero in my dislike.
So now I'll try to read more in this series hoping for heroes who are, eh, not Lachlain.


Ryoshi - Strategy


“Was it just her, or did lovers look more adoringly at each other in this city? Especially in the springtime.
'Die, bastards.'

She sighed. It wasn't their fault that they were bastards who should die.”

 

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