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I like Elle. I love Ceph. I hate how obvious his name is, but that's whatever. They're great together; I just wish this wasn't as insta-lovey as it was. Give me more resistance, angst, survivor's guilt, and guilt over perceived betrayal. I actually found myself pretty invested in the sci-fi action/adventure plot.
If voyeurism or exhibitionism bothers you steer clear of this book. Everyone knows what you're doing thanks to group telepathy.
This is ok. Ophelia never being even a teensy bit scared of the “monster” kind of defeats the purpose of having a monster as the love interest for me. If you like Luxuria try [b:Land of the Beautiful Dead 27228341 Land of the Beautiful Dead R. Lee Smith https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1446254788l/27228341.SY75.jpg 47272939]. And if you didn't like Luxuria definitely try it because it has all the romantic and sexual pining, angst, and drama that I was missing here.
Game of Thrones Dothraki romance/erotica fan-fiction set on another planet humans have partially, and somewhat unsuccessfully, tried to colonize where the wannabe Dothrakis have tails.
Somewhat questionable consent in that if you get someone tipsy and the touchy-touchy feels good it's not really rape.
I'm getting the impression the short story reviews are mixed in with the longer novel which seems to be bringing the average down for this. I managed to get my hands on the full length book and haven't read the short story.
3.5 because Serpents of the Abyss is a bit diamond in the rough. There's a gem in there for sure but more editing to smooth out the story probably would have bumped this up to an easy 4.5. You can definitely see where the author decided to go in a very different direction with the story which was a smidge jarring. I was all for the change and enjoyed it but didn't see it coming.
Even though this could use a little work I wanted to immediately jump into more from this world. Continuation books were promised in the end author's note but it looks like they haven't been written yet. I'm very much looking forward to those if Sanders decides to write them.
Did all the people who gave this more than 3 stars read the same book? Excuse me, SLOG through the same book. It took me almost 8 weeks to finish this. I read 28 other books because I kept putting this down. I almost gave up and DNF so many times.
My feelings for almost every character I had come to like turned meh or into outright hate. Except for Lucien because he was lucky enough to not even be present through like 3/4 of the book. And the Archeron sisters have been annoying in all 3 books so nothing new there.
Other popular 1 and 2 star reviews sum up my disgust and frustration so I can just be done.
If I decide to be forgiving enough to pick up the 4th book and Nesta isn't given an immediate attitude adjustment though I will nope right on outta there.
I was almost tempted to never add this to a shelf because it's embarrassing. My own, and fremdschämen for the fact that this even exists. Reading this was like being unable to look away from a train derailing. I'm pretty sure there are less tropes and kinks NOT included. Everything under the sun was thrown in. And not always in a good way. There was a safe-word established that I can't recall ever being used. Little miss virgin-had-no-idea-how-sex-worked-or-had-ever-touched-herself was enthusiastically a-ok with EVERYTHING right off the bat. Mhmm sure. Whatever.
I never want to think about Santa sexually in any way shape or form ever again. I wish I could induce memory loss.
