The book started out well – light, funny and entertaining. I pegged it as a hot 4 star read – the kind of rating I give to scriptures that flirt a lot with eroticism but don’t have a complicated plot. Basically, this is reserved for books that keep me engrossed...without being too deep. Sometimes a girl just needs to relax and read about some good old bunny boinking, if you know what I mean!
In other words…the experience as a whole – the writing, the plot, the sex scene, and even the mystery and thriller subplot – was well done. I would have been pleasantly surprised to find such a compact read in so few pages, if not for one small detail…well.
Maybe it started out as something small – until it snowballed in to an avalanche, made me rage and left me unable to give this anything more than 2 stars.
I am still not sure how I even stopped myself from adding it to my “avoid” shelf.
The prolog held the first seeds of the “problem”. At the time I, naively, found the setting entertaining. We encounter the short and chubby heroine sniffing out her mate’s scent in a bar. She finds her mate – wrapped around a tall and skinny blond human woman. The heroine pulls a runner and…the story lifts of many months later.
I am not one of those people that get bothered over the “ex factor”. I even like the drama those characters insure – most of the time. So, I was still happily turning the pages until the fist mentioning of cubs.
Cubs?
The hero has cubs with another woman?
And better yet…cubs? As in – plural? Oh. Right. Kitty shifters. I guess he got a litter.
I was, frankly, a bit unsettled by this. The hero is already bowing his head and confessing to being a man-whore. Somehow, getting a random woman -not even a regular ex girlfriend ,mind you - preggers leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But, silly as I was, and seeing this as a light read - I was patiently waiting for a happy conclusion.
The hero stated (in his mind) that the problem with being forever linked to the other woman was his SUPOSSED cubs.
When you add such a nifty “maybe” clause to a sentence, I see it as a red flag. You are basically telling me the ex is a bitchy bitch and that she somehow lied about the possibility of sampling some of the hero’s manly sperm. Cool! I liked that idea. Lying OW are the best!
Because of this - the fun and games were still on! That is…until I was slapped in the face with the fact that the woman gave him THREE KIDS. Not in a litter, to be specific. All of the kiddies WERE OF A DIFFERENT AGE.
”Oh, darling, I heard about you mating with Neal. Congratulations.” That smile turned wicked, almost a sneer. “I’m sure your little one will get along famously with our children.”
She didn’t want to know. Didn’t. Really. Because, in her mind, this was his first. The girl was going to be his pride and joy and they’d go through all of the baby stuff together. She was selfish enough to have wanted theirs to be his first. She had conveniently forgotten about the Gaian Moon, the part Naomi played and how close she seemed to be to Neal. Pain snaked through her with every beat of her heart and it hurt to breathe.
“Your children?” She choked out the words.
Yes, Naomi was getting way too much enjoyment out of the situation. Her eyes sparkled with triumph, probably sensing her ache.
“Of course. We have three together. Elijah is three, Carson is two, and Ryan is just over six months. I thought he told you…” The woman waved a dismissing hand. “I suppose it doesn’t matter that I got to him first, does it?”
Bleep! – goes my brain. And then…
Bleep bleep bleep !!! – it jumps in to overdrive trying to calculate this stuff.
Hm. His oldest child is three years old? That means the hero was banging this lady for 4 full years! Not minding for a second if he impregnated her – even thou he knew he had a predestined mate.
Bleep.
All of a sudden I think back to the prologue and how the hero’s arms are around his baby momma while he tells her “Yeah, sure, baby, I love you.”…Right before he ran out after the heroine/his mate.
Do you find this man sexy? Even thou the OW was “evil” in the story, we now know he was making some woman pregnant on a regular basis, had other flings while with her and then just discarded her as soon as his mate joined the party. Wow. Prized man meat, is he not?
*shudders in horror*
I then took in to account how he “wishes for some cute little girls” with the heroine - only to frown in distaste – he already has a brood of boys. Considering he was irresponsible enough to get three of them I understand his want for girls. What ever will happen if he does not get a girl? Ugh.
While ranting about this I have to add – I was never supplied with the info of how he reacted to the other pregnancies, or birth of his first three children. Was he involved? Happy? Was he more happy now? Did he want to have more kids? Were those three an accident? If he kind-of disliked the OW and his “inner lion” did not want her as his cub’s mother (or so the hero hints), then why did he continue impregnating her?
Confusing.
And, you know what? Some little percent of me was hoping the kids were not his...even after all the drama took place. I just could not stomach him being such a irresponsible idiot. And a compleate ass who never even give a second of thought or consideration to his baby momma. Sadly – no such luck.
I know, I know! The other woman was a bitch, so who cares, right?
Or…was she?
She was pissed of the hero was mated, and frankly – I would be too.
If there was one child in the mix I would have bought their “She wanted to get pregnant! That is why she went to our annual fertility fest!” line. Sure, she wanted to get knocked up in order to get the man she wanted. Evil her.
Or…again…was she evil?
I was utterly unable to hate her – since the hero cast her off like an old sock in a second. Now, THAT was crude and horrible.
Truth be told - her only crime was falling for the asshat/hero and being blond and skinny. In retaliation for this - she was constantly being called a bitch. Oh, and she was “horrible” enough to tell the heroine that she gave birth to his brood before the hero could tell her himself. And the hero did not tell the heroine in……six months. Yeah. You got that right – the hero forgot to tell his mate he has three kids FOR SIX MONTHS! And his ex is a lowlife, not him. Right?
(In case you were wondering – WRONG!)
Halfway trough the book I was already a 100% pissed off, because, really – why would I want to read about this douchebag? He can have all the six packs he wants…even an eight pack!…and I would still wish to spit on his broken bones more then I would like to read about his super-grand-ever-so-good current sex/love life.
Now you know - I already had a bad taste in my mouth - even before the author turned in to a complete coward and almost-but-not-quite killed off the other woman.
Huh?
The OW got catatonic and locked up in an asylum after encountering the psycho killer of the book - thus leaving the hero and heroine to live happily ever after with his brood. How endearing, right?
Wrong again.
Let me enlighten you with a little bit about myself: For some reason, heroes with kids piss me off.
I don’t really like them having kids with ex wives, but I deal with it - because it is a fact of life. Still, even then, I am somewhat opposed to reading about it.
Why? Well, it seems heroines, more often than not, get to care for the lead males kids - while a rare hero gets it on with a single mother.
I find this somewhat insulting – like single mothers are leapers and single dads are these über prizes for no other reason than the fact that “women like children”.
I know, I know…there are romance books out there that feature single women with kids. There are books with blended families where all parties involved have kids (those are cute too!). But when confronted with the number of books about heroes with kids – the single moms lose by a mile.
While on the subject, let me point out more clearly - the thing that makes my blood really boil is how heroines all around stop being bothered by the fact that the love of their life was spreading his genetic material like candy for Halloween as soon as they see how cute his kids are. Exhibit A, taken from the Epilogue of “Ball of furry”:
With Naomi ‘on vacation’, they’d welcomed the cubs into their home and Carly couldn’t remember why she’d been so upset about their existence.
Huh. You are several moths pregnant and there is just NOTHING in THE WORLD that could be better than having an instant family with three very active kids under the age of 4.
Where do I sign up for this party? A slutty mate that was planting his sperm in to any available woman, a crazy ex that was now in an institution and 3 instant children.
You rock girl! I 100% want to be you.
Not.
And since I read romance and erotic books in order to align myself with the heroine and have some guilt-free fun, this read was a total bust for me. I am sure there are people out there that don’t mind and don’t have the same pet peeves as me – but gosh! Can you really read about and like THIS hero?
If yes - why?
Tell me - why??? I really want to know. Maybe I am missing something!
Until then – two stars. Barely.
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