Singh, Nalini - Mine to Possess and Hostage to Pleasure

Mine to Possess - Clay Bennett and Talin McKade were childhood friends, but one night of violence tore them apart. Talin let Clay believe she were dead the past twenty years, but now that someone is kidnapping the street kids she's been working with, she thinks Clay and the DarkRiver leopards are the only ones who can help her.

It's nice that this is the first Psy-Changeling book starring a human character (Talin), although I felt it made some of the aggressiveness from Clay even less acceptable to me (I have ongoing issues with the whole dominance and marking and whatnot that goes on with the Changelings). Although I very much liked that Talin and Clay had a backstory, I felt Singh didn't illustrate it as much as I wanted, and given the circumstances under which they parted, I really really really really REALLY did not like Clay getting into Tally's personal space. REALLY did not like. I can handwave the whole "the leopard in him hated that she was afraid of him" thing, but honestly, the reaction to her being afraid to you is not to crowd her!

In terms of worldbuilding, I like that the plot in this book leads much more seamlessly into the next book (below), as well as how we're getting more and more hints as to what's going to happen with the Psy and Silence. I particularly like that Singh is starting to add humans back in; in most of the other books, they seemed like the neglected third corner without any nifty powers.

Also, as fond as I am of awkward infodumps, putting an infodump in the prologue that basically reveals the Big Reveal at the end of the book is possibly not the best idea.

Hostage to Pleasure - Ashaya Aleine is an M-Psy (medical Psy) who has been researching something that may enslave the Psy race. When Dorian Christensen helps her out in Mine to Possess, he finds himself strangely attracted to her, despite the fact that his sister was killed by a Psy serial killer and that he hates all Psy.

For some reason, the chapter headings here vary from quotes from Ashaya's personal journal, usually commenting on how Dorian affects her, to notes from the mysterious Iliana, to notes from a burgeoning rebellion. I have no idea why there are quotes about Dorian in the header, as they are anvilly and add nothing to the emotional development (and if they did, I feel the editor should have moved the development into the actual chapters instead of the headers). The others might be nice random background, but the treatment of the quotes is extremely inconsistent. I ended up ignoring most of them.

I originally did not want to read this at all, given the back cover copy—Ashaya is a mother and an M-Psy, and I very much didn't want a story about healing and maternal love. The maternal love is still there, but I liked how Ashaya's M-Psy-ness is at a DNA-level, meaning that she works more in labs and not with people at all.

Also, there is a not-too-spoilery element that makes this one of my favorite books in the series: ( Minor spoiler! )

Oh, also, warning for lots of food skin descriptions (made up example: "Your skin is like chocolate and cream! I want to lick you up and eat you.")

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As with all the other Singh books I have read, I have the same problems with male dominance, female acceptance of that dominance, the inclination toward aggressiveness and violence in the men, and the way the emotional tension disappears halfway through the book.

I'm sure people are like, "Well, why do you keep reading?"

I do because I'm interested in the worldbuilding, which probably isn't on the same level as sf/f worldbuilding, but reminds me a lot of some manga worldbuilding (i.e. "Whatever we can think of! Then we'll proceed from there. Maybe with zombie angels if that makes things better."). Although I note that there is also manga out there with impeccable worldbuilding. Sometimes it just does not give me the same rush. I really want to see how the Psy end up by the end of the series, and what that means for the rest of her world. I love the hints of backstory and generations, the story of a cultural war fought a century ago that still has impact now.

I also very much enjoy that many of her heroes are Changelings while many of her heroines are Psy, which disrupts the usual romance dynamic of the emotionally giving and understanding woman and the cold but sexual man. Obviously I have issues with the Changeling Psy dynamic as well, as noted above re: dominance and violence. But another result of having several Psy heroines is that because the main plot of the series is the changing of Psy society, the heroines are given a weight that the heroes do not have. They are the bearers of change, and I find that fascinating.

Another thing is my two favorite books in the series so far (Slave to Sensation and Hostage to Pleasure, above) are, unsurprisingly, the ones that focus most on female relationships. They are not perfect by any means, especially because all the other characters are enmeshed in nearly all-male networks, but it's still interesting.

Plus: multiracial characters, even if they have Starbucks skin and special eyes.

Most of all, I like that even though the heroes all inevitably have angsty backstory, the main development is with the heroines, who usually must change more, deal with more, and grow more. Their angst usually isn't as dramatic as the heroes', but I feel it's given much more weight in the story. With the heroes, their angst gets a lot of lip service, but because it doesn't directly impact the plot, it doesn't matter as much. I think Caressed by Ice may be the exception to this, but I don't remember. And it doesn't hurt that all the heroines so far have started out as icy and withdrawn.

Hoyt, Elizabeth - Princes trilogy

I found Elizabeth Hoyt via recs from Dear Author and oracne. So far, I've read four and a half of her books (I'm stuck on To Taste Temptation). Hoyt writes Georgians, which is a nice change from the perpetual Regencies. So far, her characterization is much better than usual, she occasionally has non-alpha men, the sex is less vanilla than usual (low bar, but still), and quite a few of her characters are explicitly described as ordinary, not pretty, or not handsome.

The Princes trilogy is about three men who know each other via an agricultural society; the stories are stylistically connected by the retelling of three "prince" fairy tales within the books. One of the pluses of the trilogy is that the stories are only slightly interconnected; there are no match-making characters, secondary character sex, or cute babies.

The Raven Prince - Anna Wren is having a difficult time keeping her very small household afloat when she's nearly run over by Edward de Raaf, the Earl of Swartingham. Edward, on the other hand, keeps scaring away his secretaries. When Anna volunteers, it seems as though both of their problems are solved.

This is Hoyt's first book and the weakest of the trilogy. I dislike the trope it relies on midway through (sex in disguise), and the employer-employee relationship almost always squicks me out, particularly when it's male employer and female employee. I don't remember much of it, save that Edward is very paranoid about his face and upper body, both of which are scarred from a childhood encounter with smallpox. I liked that the scarring, while related to his childhood traumatic incident and to his current insecurity, isn't the result of some heroic injury, that it is described as off-putting, and that it's not one of those stupid tropes in which the hero angsts about his ugliness for chapters and chapters, only to have the readers discover that he only has two dashing scars on his cheekbone or something.

There is a subplot regarding courtesans that I wasn't much for, as some of it skirted around the Courtesan with the Heart of Gold trope, as well as a subplot involving Anna being blackmailed. Also, the fairy tale isn't integrated in the story as it is in the later two books, although I briefly smiled at it because it reminded me of Princess Tutu.

Still, the character interaction was interesting, although it was a bit of a disappointment after the other two books (I read the trilogy backwards).

The Leopard Prince - Lady Georgina Maitland is checking out one of her estates when a series of sheep murders breaks out. Unfortunately, the suspect is her trusty steward Harry Pye! Even more unfortunately, she has begun to notice that Harry has very nice wide shoulders and a very muscular build...

This was a very fun book, although I think it might have been improved with less Harry angst in the end, as that didn't work with the frothier tone in the beginning for me. Hoyt manages to skirt around my employer-employee squick with the lighter tone here, as well as by making the woman the employer and the man the employee. Harry's pretty alpha, so there was less imbalance in the power dynamics of the relationship. (Which is not to say that this works in real life, because NO. But enough to get me to read.) Also, I think Janssen's The Duchess, Her Maid, the Groom, and Their Lover does a more interesting version of the class differences between the hero and the heroine.

I enjoyed George, who's very fashionable, somewhat harebrained, but actually extremely smart underneath the ruffles, and I was very fond of her and Harry as a couple. There are some missteps when it comes to George's many brothers and her sister; I thought the subplot about her sister again didn't work with the fluffier tone for me, and I completely didn't believe the resolution of the George-Harry romance.

Most of my quibbles are that it felt like Hoyt was still figuring out tone and how to balance a comic tone with slightly more serious matters. That said, I had a lot of fun reading this.

The Serpent Prince - Lucy Craddock-Hayes lives a fairly staid life—she's slowly being courted by the local vicar and is a Pillar of the Community. That is, until she finds Viscount Simon Iddesleigh naked in a ditch, beaten nearly to death. Unbeknownst to Lucy, Simon is intent upon finding the men who conspired to kill his brother and killing them via duel. What follows is a very traditional-feeling love story with very little flash but a lot of emotion.

This book doesn't do much with gender roles, save that Simon is not an alpha bastard. He's of the "secretly angsty but hides his angst under foppishness and drivel" category that I have great fondness for (see: Scarlet Pimpernel). Lucy herself is very honest and very straightforward, but not in a flirtatious or spunky manner. She reads as very solemn and serious instead. My favorite part of the book is the romance between Lucy and Simon: they fall in love fairly quickly but they both realize it's not likely for the romance to succeed. In spite of that, Simon proposes. The bulk of the novel is not about their sexual chemistry, but rather about how they will make the relationship work when Simon is intent upon destroying himself.

I mentioned the romance felt "traditional" to me; a large part of it is because the focus is on the emotions of the hero and the heroine and not about the sex. There's also the fact that they first have sex after being married, that the first time isn't perfect, and even that there is a divide between the more knowledgeable guy wanting sex with the less knowledgeable woman not being so sure. It sounds odd that I'd appreciate this, but I do. I like how Lucy learns about sex, as opposed to instantly thinking it's awesome, and while I raise my eyebrow at Simon at times, I like that he is actually very protective of Lucy, and not in a snarly animalistic way.

Despite the massive amounts of angst, this read as very sweet to me. It's about two people who very much love each other, even as they're still learning about the other person. And while I could critique the female-savior/male-sinner dynamic, I think Hoyt makes it work extremely well by virtue of her characterization.

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Hoyt is also offering a free online novella, The Ice Princess, which is the story of the courtesan with the heart of gold in The Raven Prince. Given the title, the fairy tale it references, and the way the story has been going so far (hero not using sex to seduce a courtesan!), I like it a lot. Here's hoping it ends well. Warning: the first chapter is in an incredibly annoying format.